Today I learned that it really sucks to lock your keys in the car. Especially when you're in the middle of nowhere. In a snowstorm.
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| What the car looked like about an hour earlier when we went to pack it. |
I was dumb enough to not just lock my keys in my car, no I managed to leave the car running too. Engine, lights, heater, windscreen wipers, everything.
We ran inside and I asked the guy behind the counter if he had a coathanger. He went and found the maintenance guy, a surly old man with frostbitten hands, who brought a coathanger and came out to give it a go.
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| The grouchy helping man attempts to break in. |
His willingness to assist was somewhat at odds with his grouchy disposition. I started off by apologising for being so stupid, and he responded by saying locking the keys in the car wasn't stupid, no, we were stupid because we locked the car at all. He genuinely believed that we locked the car out of tangible distrust toward the people of Tusayan.
My offer to buy a coffee for him was rejected with a gruff "I work here, I get all the goddamn free coffee I want".
After about half an hour, he marched inside with an abrupt "my hands are cold, you do it". The warmth inside the car seemed to tease me. As did my gloves, which I could see just inside on my chair.
We crossed the road and went to the general store, where an employee gave me the number of A local guy he said could get us into any car.
We headed down the road to the gas station where there was a public phone. It swallowed my money. Luckily, a lovely woman had noticed and leant me her cellphone. The guy, Randle, said he would be there in half an hour.
Randle arrived in a blue pickup truck wearing cowboy boots and a stereotypical hat. He got into the car so fast that I couldn't quite believe it! Best $120 I've ever spent.
