By June Mathews
I’ve been having issues with my car lately. And no, I’m not referring to mechanical breakdowns or flat tires. I’m talking about things like leaving the car running in parking lots and spilling an entire mega-jumbo cup of sweet tea on the front seat then two days later turning over a huge container of potting soil in the trunk.
My most recent issue occurred when I set off the car’s burglar alarm in the downtown deck where I park during my three-a-week workdays. Now mind you, I had no idea there was an alarm on my car until I set it off. So I guess it’s to my credit that I’ve owned this car nearly three years and until last week never tripped the alarm.
I’ve had only one other car with a burglar alarm, and it dealt me fits. It would go off at the most inopportune times with little provocation, and I hated the doggone thing. I swore I’d never have another car with an alarm, and had I known my current car had one before I bought it, I would have made disconnecting it a condition of the sale.
But this alarm, I have to say, has been no trouble at all, especially since I was so blissfully unaware of its existence until last week. And I had a very good reason for setting it off: I thought the headlights had gone haywire.
It was raining that day, so I’d turned the headlights on as I left the house. When I pulled into a place in the parking deck, I naturally flipped the switch to turn the lights off. Then I got out of the car, hit the lock button and slammed the door shut behind me. But as I was walking away, I noticed that the headlights I’d just made a conscious effort to turn off were shining brightly on a concrete post in front of the car.
I turned back to investigate, and without thinking, pulled on the locked door handle and inadvertently set off the alarm. Yes, the alarm I didn’t know existed, and thus had no clue how to disarm.
So I did what I figured might help: I clicked the panic button on my key fob. Unfortunately that only made the problem worse. Double horn honks began sounding off between triple alarm honks, and in the semi-closed concrete quarters, the noise was deafening.
Sticking the key in the lock didn’t help, either, so I finally opened the door, sat down in the car seat, fumbled around for what seemed an eternity and finally managed to stop the racket.
Unnerved as all get-out, I carefully re-exited the car and gingerly backed away, lest I unwittingly awaken the alarm gremlin again. By that time, several people had gathered to watch the show (notably, none were trying to help), so all I could do was laugh and say, “Just wanted to make sure everybody’s awake!” and head for the elevator.
But dang if the lights weren’t still shining on that concrete post. Mystified, I rounded the front of the car to look the offending beams in the eye, only to discover it was the headlights of the vehicle next to mine that shone so brightly. My headlights had been off the whole time.
So now I know there’s a burglar alarm on my car and that it works just fine. But I probably should read the owner’s manual to figure out exactly how the thing works so I won’t set it off again. And maybe I’ll take a look at how to turn it off, too. You know, just in case that information might come in handy some day. It obviously would have last week.
Email June Mathews at jmathews120@charter.net.
