Start Me Up

If you start me up,

If you start me up, I’ll never stop* 

Recently, I was getting ready to leave for an out-of-town trip. My wife’s car was behind mine in our driveway and had to be moved before I could get my car out. My wife got in her car, I got in mine, and we started our engines. In my rearview mirror, I saw my wife get out of her car and begin walking down the driveway toward me. 

“Did you remember to take any snacks for the road?” she called to me.

I got out of my car. “No,” I replied.

“I’ll get some for you,” she offered and ran back into the house. With both cars still running, I decided to move hers to the street. Then I backed my car to the street and waited. A few minutes later, my wife returned and handed me the snacks. I thanked her and drove away.

A few hours later after arriving at my destination, I discovered her keys in my coat pocket.  After moving her car, I had shut off the engine and pocketed her keys. Of course, I also had my set of keys, which included the only extra key to her car. Consequently, my wife would be unable to drive her car until I returned three days later.

Now, my wife had a number of errands to run in my absence that absolutely required a car. Fortunately, my daughter lives only a mile away. She and her husband have two cars and offered to let my wife borrow one of them. Like many newer cars, theirs doesn’t use an actual key to start it. Instead, it uses a fob containing a microchip. You push the starter button, and the chip links to the car’s computer system to start the car and keep it running until you push the starter button again to turn it off.

My son-in-law drove the loaner car to our house, picked up my wife and drove back to his house. With the engine still running, he got out of the car, said goodbye to my wife, and walked into his house. My wife climbed into the driver’s seat, and being the smart woman she is, started looking for the key fob. Unable to find it, she called my son-in-law on her cell phone and asked him where he had put the fob.

He paused for a second and said, “Oh. It’s in my pocket.”

“How far could I have driven without the fob in the car?” my wife wondered.

“You would have made it back to your house. But you wouldn’t have been able to start the car again once you shut it off.”

“Then I would have two cars in front of my house that I couldn’t start.”

“Sorry. I’ll be right out with the key.”

After my wife described this episode with my son-in-law, I pondered whether this was a man-thing, subconsciously holding onto the car key in the same manner as controlling the TV remote. I hope that’s not the case. It would be sad if it were.

You make a grown man cry,

You make a grown man cry.*

 

* “Start Me Up,” M. Jagger, K. Richards