Sunday, November 20, 2016

MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: ALL TO MAKE YOUR LIFE MORE CONVENIENT

Yes, I understand that this is a First World Problem and that compared to other difficulties in the world, this is a stupid thing to get upset over.  But who, by that is holy, designed modern car keys?    They do all kinds of things that I never request of them.  Because they have buttons and are in my pocket my car carries out unintended orders ALL OF THE GET-OUT TIME!  For example, you have your arms full of stuff to put in your car, you get there and find that it is LOCKED and you have to set everything down, dig in your pockets, and because I am both dyslexic and developing poor eyesight, have a Jim-dandy of a time trying to unlock the blessed car BECAUSE OF THIS:
I will admit, I was a bit enamored of the thing when I first got it.  You pressed the little circle thingy and the key part of the key swings out.  I thought this would better on the material of my pocket.  But no, because the button sticks out so far that is constantly being pressed in my pocket and THIS happens:
The other day I was visiting my sister in Barberton and we went outside to find my car doing this:
Just about every button on my "key" that could be pressed was set in motion because I made the mistake of putting the key in my pocket with something else that must have kept activating all of the buttons.

So here I am feeling old and cranky again . . . but remember when THIS was a car key?
It opened your car
It didn't need a battery
If you needed another it was able to be copied inexpensively
It didn't do funny things in your pocket
It didn't activate anything you didn't intend to be activated

Of course,
It doesn't cut down on nearly as much time in Purgatory
It didn't make nearly as interesting a blog post.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Father, I feel your frustration.

Several years ago, our Subaru was parked outside my place of work. A severe windstorm/hail storm/thunderstorm passed through (not a tornado, although we were all evacuated to a windowless, secure area).

Once the sun came out again, one of the men I worked with went outside to check his car and told me I had damage to my car. He said it looked like someone took a baseball bat to it with a vengence.

He offered to move it for me since it was under a tree that was now leaning. I gave him the keys, which had one of the evil fobs you have in addition to real keys.

Not being acquainted with the then-new technology of keyless entry, he used the key to unlock the door. Big mistake. Bells, whistles, screeching horn, and blinking head and tail lights went off. Apparently my genius car fob objected to the key being used on the door and thought a creepy car thief was attempting to make off with it. The poor car was terrified, not to mention my kind co-worker.

Lesson learned. Sue, ofs

Fr. V said...

Oh dear! Poor guy - I get a chuckle of thinking of his reaction.

Fr. V

Pat said...

I gave my son the key to my Father's 1960 Pontiac as a remembrance of him.

Anonymous said...

The best thing about buttons on keys is that now you can buy shells and cases for keys. Jesus! Nonetheless, not only that, you also are charged many more than from a regular old key. My friend who appears to be working as a Toronto locksmith is telling me that new key to a modern car is 10 to 15 dollars for a blank key, skill of programming a key (or to pay somebody) and you are not secured from another key failure. Blanks for that cheap are usually made of bad plastic.
But for older cars it`s much simplier, especially when it was a popular model and you can find blanks