Locked

Some things are just hard to forget….

My habit of being distracted leading to the wrong thing happening at the wrong time began many springs ago.  Springtime in California is marked by a welcome warmth interrupted by a cold wind coming off the ocean.  As the interior valley heats up, the chilly ocean breeze races onshore towards the heat of the interior.  It is a time of bright sun and the beginning of the warm dry summer.  As I have mentioned in previous essays, my older sister had to do everything first.  It was in just such a spring that my sister announced her engagement.  It was her only but she was the first in our family, however, there would be more.    Remember the guy in the green MG and my younger sister and I throwing shoes out the window? – it was that guy.  It is amazing that boyfriends and for that matter girlfriends never quite accurately reflect their parents.  The boy/girlfriend is always so much better.  Nevertheless, if you are the parent you have to make an attempt to be inclusive or at the very least meet them.  It was on just such an occasion that my parents were meeting the parents of their daughter’s fiancé.   In a moment of “how did he make that decision” my father who came from a land-locked state decided after graduating from Harvard Law to become a member of a yacht Club. This club would be the center of many family adventures and stories.  I will not digress as this is about a very specific dinner which, for me set the stage for other such events.   My parents invited the soon-to-be in-laws to dinner on a lovely spring evening at their club.  For my grammar school self, there was nothing memorable about this dinner because it was boring ---The aforementioned wind came up and the outside dinner became quite cold and uncomfortable.  This is before the outside heat lamps whose sales have sored during the pandemic.  I was looking for something to do so my father took the risk of giving me the car keys and asking me to fetch coats and jackets for everyone to ward off the cold as dinner had not yet concluded.  I still can remember the relief of being able to leave the table, wander around the building and eventually come to the car to perform my requested chore.  A couple of important facts which will become obviously relevant: 1) Cars in this era had manual keys not attached -to-the-internet clickers.  2) You could jump-start a car but none of the electronics worked like the windows. 3) you could break into cars but not trunks. 

Reaching into my pocket I retrieved the keys; unlocked the trunk of the car and picked out all the jackets and sweaters I could find.  Balancing all these garments in one arm I slammed the trunk of the car and at that very moment without touching my pocket I realized that the keys were not in my hand or a pocket. They were in the trunk. They were in the LOCKED trunk.  Horrified would be the best way to describe that sick empty feeling which overtook my entire being.  The there-is-truly-no-way-out of this feeling. With my empty hand, I pounded on the trunk as if punishing it and me for locking itself.  To say I walked slowly back to the dinner table would be a massive understatement. There was the hope, of course, that my mother had a spare key or there was a hidden key somewhere on the car or my father had an extra key -- none of these hopes materialized.  After multiple “good -boys” and smiling thank you as I passed out the welcomed pieces of warmth, I whispered in my father’s ear the real result of his trust in his 10-year-old son to do his bidding…

Maybe because we were on best behavior in front of the new people; maybe it was resignation that it was done, but my father always surprised me when faced with an irritating problem.  Granted he was not happy but there was no extreme admonishment for what I had done.  After dinner he called AAA; a man came and broke into the car and managed to start the engine so we could head home --- a full hour away.  Perhaps it was punishment enough that I had to sit in the back seat with the cold wind blowing on me for the hour-long drive.  Remember the car could run but the electric window did not work.  Somehow the service guy had managed to lower the window to unlock the door.  He had started the engine but the trunk remained locked and the window open. I was locked in a pattern of inexplicable missteps that would continue into my adult life

(to be continued…)