06E110
Car Is Alarmed
I thought
I wanted a car alarm... but right from the start, it’s been nothing but
trouble.
Sometimes
it barks and clicks but refuses to open.
Other times it clicks and barks, but nothing is locked. Either way, it usually regards my key in the
lock as a violation, and sets itself off.
It’s gotten so my toddler sees me reach for the key and utters his own
little “Durnit!” a second before mine.
I keep
begging the dealer to fix it, but he insists it’s working perfectly. “Perhaps,
if you spent more time with the instruction book?”
Good
idea. The book is 50 pages long, filled
with sentences like “For optimal use of automatic timing device, activate
subsequence A…”! I’d do better looking
up a few car thieves, and asking them for help.
I wonder,
for instance, how they’d handle the timer.
Mine gives me exactly 30 seconds to close one door, race around the car
and open anyone else’s –
or it takes matters into its own hands.
My problem
is, I have two small children. And there
is NOTHING you can do with a small child in 30 seconds, let alone getting him
into or out of a car.
“Come on,
sweetie, quit fooling with the seat belt and get out of the car right this
second! Why? Because if you don’t let Mommy shut the door, we’re going to hear
...”
“WhooooooOOOOOOOOP! HONK!
WhooooooooOOOOOOOOP! HONK!”
“Durnit!”
Even when
I’m alone with the thing, it’s a menace.
I’m in my car, starting it with the key – I must be a burglar! It went into a full Code Four, and trapped me
inside. Ignition locked out; doors
locked; no way to start the car to either turn off the alarm or re-set it;
power windows all the way up… I couldn’t even yell out for help. Thank goodness for my cell phone. I used it to call my husband:
“Help....”
“Judy! What’s wrong?”
“I’m
trapped...”
“Where are
you? Honey, I can’t hear you, someone’s
car alarm is going!”
“It’s me,
with the car alarm!”
“Just tell
me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”
“I’m
inside the car, in the driveway! Stick
your head out the front door and you’ll see!”
I can’t
imagine what purpose this feature serves.
Frankly, if someone tries to steal my car in the middle of the night,
and fails, I want him to get away. The
last thing I need is to come downstairs in the morning and find some criminal,
trapped in my car for 8 hours, desperate to escape.
And if the
point of a car alarm is to draw attention to somebody stealing it, I can tell
you, no one turns a hair.
So must it
really go on and on? As far as I’m
concerned, if it’s still going after five minutes, you can have the car. The whole neighborhood will thank you. Just do me one little favor – would you let
me out, first?
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