Auto idiocy

And now, for an edition of "life's little moments."

Last night, I went to circus practice. I pulled my car into a parking spot, which sloped forward a little bit and had a fire hydrant on the other side, so I set my hand brake. I turned the car off, eager to get to the ropes...and the key wouldn't come out of the ignition. It was totally stuck. In fact, it wouldn't even turn back past the first position.

Okaaaaay...so I wiggled it around a bit, trying not to pull too hard, and finally I got it to release. Whew! Problem solved, I spent a very pleasant two hours depleting my grip strength developing large green bruises on my legs.

Then I got back in my car, preparing to drive home for dinner. I put the key in the ignition, turned it to the crack position --- and nothing happened. Nada. Well, not nothing: The lights on the console went on and the car beeped at me, but the engine didn't crank. It didn't even try. Uh oh.

I know enough about cars to deduce that it wasn't a problem with the battery, since if it were, the lights wouldn't have come on. But beyond that I had no idea what could be wrong --- especially considering that I'd taken the car for its 100,000 mile service and state inspection two days before and it come back with a completely clean bill of health. Grr. I tried turning the key again, visions of tow trucks and large repair bills dancing in my head. Again, nothing. Had the guys at the garage messed something up when they were working on my car? Did the key break somehow? Was the universe trying to prevent me from getting home and having the dinner that I so richly deserved after my workout?

Defeated, I pulled my AAA card out of my wallet and started dialing. As I made my way through the phone tree (all automated! pretty cool!), I looked down and saw that the hand brake was set. That's unusual for me; I almost never need the parking brake. Since I use it so rarely, maybe there was something about it that had gone wrong and was now interfering with the normal functioning of my car?

I released the hand brake. The car immediately started rolling forward, down the slope, aiming for a head-on collision with the fire hydrant. Not good! I stepped on the brakes, but they didn't work. Seriously not good! Luckily I had the presence of mind to drop the phone and yank on the parking brake again. The car stopped mere inches from the fire hydrant, and my body slipped out of heart-attack mode. At the same time, looking down at the hand that had performed my life-saving maneuver on the parking brake, I noticed the gear shift for the first time.

It was in drive.

I was an idiot.

I shifted into park, mashed my foot down on the brake, and turned the key in the ignition. It worked! My baby was alive! I hung up on AAA and cruised home for dinner.

I'm still not sure whether to berate myself for being such a moron in the first place, or congratulate myself on having been able to figure out the problem all by myself. Since I'm in a good mood tonight, I'm going with the latter.