My lottery/mystery solved (Part 2)
To preface this debate, and probably at the risk of making myself look even more foolish than I present normally, I’ll give you a little history on my car. Men have always been fascinated by my car. I’ve never quite understood why. It’s a 10 yr old, basic burgundy all-purpose Volvo that I bought used 3 yrs ago with 30K miles on it from a little old lady who felt she could no longer drive. It’s what my teen DDs claim looks like and is “an old lady car.” But it’s reliable and safe, which are the important factors to me. The car was also in exceptionally good condition. She had been well cared for, had not a scratch on her and had obviously been carefully stored in a garage. This car had obviously been this little old lady’s “baby.” (Now, knowing what I know, I'd really like to get to know that 81 yr old woman better! *LOL*)
But when I take my car in for tire rotations, service & maintenance or just to have something checked, or even when I stop for gas, I quite often have a male walk over, or one who has been under the hood or has started her up, comment, “DANG! This baby is sweeeeeeet!” It’s usually the under 50 males that have such reactions to the car. It’s a basic Volvo, I swear! No fancy paint job, no fancy interior, no glass packs or 4 barrels, just an “old lady Volvo.” I thank them for the compliment and drive off thinking, “I just don’t get it!”
The only unique thing about my car is that it has two extra buttons on it. One little silver toggle switch on the dash…I never did figure out what it was for and have played around with it, flipped it back and forth, multiple times. Nothing happens. (or so I THOUGHT) Never did figure it out but finally assumed that the original owner must have had a CD changer or something in it that was removed before I bought it. The other button is that “winter sport mode” switch that I mentioned earlier that took me almost a year to figure out. It’s kind of like a cross between 4 wheel drive and “low gear range” on a truck. I know it’s NOT really 4WD. But if I flip into this mode on a mountain in bad weather, it feels like it makes the roads clear up, level up, and straighten up; and the bad weather magically goes away. Really kewl button! I just never did figure out that little silver one.
The only other unique thing about my car is that it appears to be haunted. Or at least that’s to what I blamed it before this week. Let’s see, there was the time, a few months after I bought her, when I couldn’t find my keys and had to be at a meeting, so I took DH’s keys and headed out to work. A couple of miles down the road, I reached down to flip the fog lights on and must have hit the wrong switch or something and the car started beeping at me. I couldn’t figure out where the heck the beeping was even coming from. A minute or two later, the beeping got louder and faster. Then the emergency flashers came on. Then the door locks all went down. Then the car just shut down and died. It wouldn’t restart, wouldn’t even turn over. It wouldn’t unlock. And the darned thing wouldn’t even let me take the key out of the ignition! I had to call for help, and crawl into the backseat and into the trunk to pull the emergency release to get the doors open! Then the hood latch locked down and wouldn’t release to let me open the hood to attempt to jump the car. After the car was towed and “reset” by the dealer, my key would no longer work….wouldn’t even fit into the door or ignition. I had to order an entire new set of keys. REALLY WEIRD!
The car allows me to drive her during daylight with the doors unlocked. But if I get in her after dark, all the doors automatically lock down the minute I close the door. It used to creep me out. But I finally decided that it must be equipped with some kind of safety sensor? But it drives DH nuts. He unlocks the doors. The doors lock back down. He hits “unlock”; they relock. I just laugh and say “She doesn't know you and is trying to make sure I’m safe; so you have to leave the locks alone.” He would just growl at me and roll his eyes. (Yeah, let's see if he rolls his eyes at me anymore when I tell him that! *LOL*)
When I first bought it, I couldn’t get out of the car with it running because it would automatically lock down when I shut the doors. I tried EVERYTHING to prevent it….every danged button and setting on that car….nothing worked. I finally started carrying an extra key. But I stopped using it after about a month because I started noticing that as long as I was warming the car up at home between the hours of 5am and 9am, it wouldn’t lock me out. It was as if the car had figured out that it was ok to idle during those times because I was at home in my own driveway?
Then there was the event just last month when DH took the car to have the tires rotated. The car started beeping at him as he pulled into the tire store. DH stepped out of the car, leaving the key in the ignition and popped the hood. He then attempted to pull the cable off the battery to stop the beeping. As he did, the door closed and all the locks popped down. He then borrowed a “jimmy stick” to try to unlock the door and open it. (Geez, was that ever a mistake!) The horn started blowing, the lights started flashing (and the battery was supposedly unhooked). When he attempted again to open the hood, the hood was locked down and wouldn’t release. He finally called me at work and told me to come back home and see if I could unlock the car. When I put MY key in the car, everything stopped and went back to normal. I laughed it off as “This car and me, we’ve developed a relationship and understanding…..she KNOWS who she belongs to….DH, ya just gotta learn how to train a car right!”
Now, never did it occur to me that there might have been a perfectly logical reason for all this. Never did I think to ask anybody WHY my car did these things. And I sure didn’t want anyone to think I was delusional when they heard me trying to explain all this. And I guess along the way, mechanics never thought to tell me why these things kept happening to me because they assumed that if I bought the car and drive it regularly, I would KNOW about my own car. So this might shed some light into why I became so frustrated with my mechanic this week.
Frank: ….but it could be the “Street Toys” if you’re leaving them on for long periods of time and not driving the car, or maybe somebody is messing with your car and your Street Toys are reacting to it.
Me: Frank, what the heck are you talking about? So you think somebody is draining my battery or something?
Frank: No, I’m just saying that I can’t service your Street Toys. You’ll have to have them checked by whomever installed them. But you can check your remote or run a scan on your computer and see if anything looks abnormal. If not, take it back to the installer to check, just in case.
Me: What installer? Everything on that car is original except for the oil, filters, tires, battery and the axle you just put on it.
Frank: No, the Street Toys are not original.
Me: What the heck are Street Toys?!?!
Frank: Your remote system
Me: I don’t have a remote system!
Frank: Yes you do…the computer system on your car that you work from your remote control, you know….
Me: Frank! I don’t even have a FOB! You’re getting my car mixed up with someone else’s. I drive that one right there….that burgundy car, right there….(pointing out the window to my car)
(Frank’s wife walks in and comments): Oh wow, you’re the lady who owns that sweeeeeet thannnng?!? I LOVE that car! I’ve been trying to talk Frank into getting me one of those systems for my car!
Me: WHAT SYSTEM!?!?!
Mrs. Frank: Your Street Toys! You know…..that little button you pushed this morning in your house while you were drinking your coffee to de-ice the doors and windows, start your car, warm it up…heck without that, you would have been outside in the cold like the rest of us.
Me: I WAS outside, with a blow dryer, trying to open my frozen car door! I don’t have any flippin’ remotes or magic buttons!!
After several minutes of this confusion and frustration, I finally convinced Frank that I really was totally lost. So he took me around to the lift/bay and showed me this little black box that was attached over next to my engine, down in between a bunch of wires, barely visible between all those hoses and belts. Then he followed one of the wires and showed me where it led into my car to that mysterious silver switch on the dash……now known as the “Emergency Street Toy Override Switch.” Geez, and I was beginning to think it was a bomb!!! ~sigh~
I now know the purpose of the mysterious silver switch……the one that can reset my car, (with the proper secret code put into the stereo with those station memory buttons that I naively thought were just for my radio). It was the switch for those times when I’ve changed keys and/or drivers and confused the car and made it think it was being stolen and to prevent it from going into “defense mode” and shutting down the entire car and locking down the thief inside! It's that same button that with the use of the proper key in the door can shut off the alarm system when it’s beeping and flashing the lights. That same button caused one of Frank’s staff to laugh hysterically and comment, “Geez, you really didn’t know you have this Toy system on this thing and really don’t know the code for it?!? It’s a good thing you never lost your keys or played with that switch or hit it while you were driving because you would have been broke down on the side of the road, locked in your car and would have never figured out what to do!”
***Yeah, that would have been the pits on a foggy morning. I would have had to crawl out through the trunk, huh?***
So, after a 10 minute explanation of everything that little black box, along with a CD for my computer and a little remote control can do, I stood in utter shock. Then the reality started kicking in.....
You mean to tell me that for the past 3 years I have been able to start my car from my computer or from a remote control key chain? And I can set the temperature that I want it to be from inside my office? And it will defrost the doors and windows with the push of a button without ever touching the car? And that my key tells my car who to expect and what my driving habits are? And this box, determines from that if it’s really ME driving? And there’s an elaborate alarm system on it that will lock down the doors, hood and trunk to keep somebody from disabling it? And if they get past that, it will lock a thief down inside my car? And that there’s a timer on this thing that I can set to my own desires? AND that there’s an elaborate lighting system on it where I can choose my interior colors and under the dash colors and lights under the seats and even under the car that I never even knew existed?!?! And I can locate my car from my computer if my kids drive it or it gets stolen?!?!
So my car really does have a relationship with me?? And it really did know when DH was driving it rather than me?!? HOLY COW!!!!
In other words, I’m really NOT driving an "old lady car" but really instead driving a “sweeeeeeeet Street Toy” and never knew it?!?!
Now where the heck do I get one of those little remote control key chain thingies and that CD for my computer?!? I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW!
But when I take my car in for tire rotations, service & maintenance or just to have something checked, or even when I stop for gas, I quite often have a male walk over, or one who has been under the hood or has started her up, comment, “DANG! This baby is sweeeeeeet!” It’s usually the under 50 males that have such reactions to the car. It’s a basic Volvo, I swear! No fancy paint job, no fancy interior, no glass packs or 4 barrels, just an “old lady Volvo.” I thank them for the compliment and drive off thinking, “I just don’t get it!”
The only unique thing about my car is that it has two extra buttons on it. One little silver toggle switch on the dash…I never did figure out what it was for and have played around with it, flipped it back and forth, multiple times. Nothing happens. (or so I THOUGHT) Never did figure it out but finally assumed that the original owner must have had a CD changer or something in it that was removed before I bought it. The other button is that “winter sport mode” switch that I mentioned earlier that took me almost a year to figure out. It’s kind of like a cross between 4 wheel drive and “low gear range” on a truck. I know it’s NOT really 4WD. But if I flip into this mode on a mountain in bad weather, it feels like it makes the roads clear up, level up, and straighten up; and the bad weather magically goes away. Really kewl button! I just never did figure out that little silver one.
The only other unique thing about my car is that it appears to be haunted. Or at least that’s to what I blamed it before this week. Let’s see, there was the time, a few months after I bought her, when I couldn’t find my keys and had to be at a meeting, so I took DH’s keys and headed out to work. A couple of miles down the road, I reached down to flip the fog lights on and must have hit the wrong switch or something and the car started beeping at me. I couldn’t figure out where the heck the beeping was even coming from. A minute or two later, the beeping got louder and faster. Then the emergency flashers came on. Then the door locks all went down. Then the car just shut down and died. It wouldn’t restart, wouldn’t even turn over. It wouldn’t unlock. And the darned thing wouldn’t even let me take the key out of the ignition! I had to call for help, and crawl into the backseat and into the trunk to pull the emergency release to get the doors open! Then the hood latch locked down and wouldn’t release to let me open the hood to attempt to jump the car. After the car was towed and “reset” by the dealer, my key would no longer work….wouldn’t even fit into the door or ignition. I had to order an entire new set of keys. REALLY WEIRD!
The car allows me to drive her during daylight with the doors unlocked. But if I get in her after dark, all the doors automatically lock down the minute I close the door. It used to creep me out. But I finally decided that it must be equipped with some kind of safety sensor? But it drives DH nuts. He unlocks the doors. The doors lock back down. He hits “unlock”; they relock. I just laugh and say “She doesn't know you and is trying to make sure I’m safe; so you have to leave the locks alone.” He would just growl at me and roll his eyes. (Yeah, let's see if he rolls his eyes at me anymore when I tell him that! *LOL*)
When I first bought it, I couldn’t get out of the car with it running because it would automatically lock down when I shut the doors. I tried EVERYTHING to prevent it….every danged button and setting on that car….nothing worked. I finally started carrying an extra key. But I stopped using it after about a month because I started noticing that as long as I was warming the car up at home between the hours of 5am and 9am, it wouldn’t lock me out. It was as if the car had figured out that it was ok to idle during those times because I was at home in my own driveway?
Then there was the event just last month when DH took the car to have the tires rotated. The car started beeping at him as he pulled into the tire store. DH stepped out of the car, leaving the key in the ignition and popped the hood. He then attempted to pull the cable off the battery to stop the beeping. As he did, the door closed and all the locks popped down. He then borrowed a “jimmy stick” to try to unlock the door and open it. (Geez, was that ever a mistake!) The horn started blowing, the lights started flashing (and the battery was supposedly unhooked). When he attempted again to open the hood, the hood was locked down and wouldn’t release. He finally called me at work and told me to come back home and see if I could unlock the car. When I put MY key in the car, everything stopped and went back to normal. I laughed it off as “This car and me, we’ve developed a relationship and understanding…..she KNOWS who she belongs to….DH, ya just gotta learn how to train a car right!”
Now, never did it occur to me that there might have been a perfectly logical reason for all this. Never did I think to ask anybody WHY my car did these things. And I sure didn’t want anyone to think I was delusional when they heard me trying to explain all this. And I guess along the way, mechanics never thought to tell me why these things kept happening to me because they assumed that if I bought the car and drive it regularly, I would KNOW about my own car. So this might shed some light into why I became so frustrated with my mechanic this week.
Frank: ….but it could be the “Street Toys” if you’re leaving them on for long periods of time and not driving the car, or maybe somebody is messing with your car and your Street Toys are reacting to it.
Me: Frank, what the heck are you talking about? So you think somebody is draining my battery or something?
Frank: No, I’m just saying that I can’t service your Street Toys. You’ll have to have them checked by whomever installed them. But you can check your remote or run a scan on your computer and see if anything looks abnormal. If not, take it back to the installer to check, just in case.
Me: What installer? Everything on that car is original except for the oil, filters, tires, battery and the axle you just put on it.
Frank: No, the Street Toys are not original.
Me: What the heck are Street Toys?!?!
Frank: Your remote system
Me: I don’t have a remote system!
Frank: Yes you do…the computer system on your car that you work from your remote control, you know….
Me: Frank! I don’t even have a FOB! You’re getting my car mixed up with someone else’s. I drive that one right there….that burgundy car, right there….(pointing out the window to my car)
(Frank’s wife walks in and comments): Oh wow, you’re the lady who owns that sweeeeeet thannnng?!? I LOVE that car! I’ve been trying to talk Frank into getting me one of those systems for my car!
Me: WHAT SYSTEM!?!?!
Mrs. Frank: Your Street Toys! You know…..that little button you pushed this morning in your house while you were drinking your coffee to de-ice the doors and windows, start your car, warm it up…heck without that, you would have been outside in the cold like the rest of us.
Me: I WAS outside, with a blow dryer, trying to open my frozen car door! I don’t have any flippin’ remotes or magic buttons!!
After several minutes of this confusion and frustration, I finally convinced Frank that I really was totally lost. So he took me around to the lift/bay and showed me this little black box that was attached over next to my engine, down in between a bunch of wires, barely visible between all those hoses and belts. Then he followed one of the wires and showed me where it led into my car to that mysterious silver switch on the dash……now known as the “Emergency Street Toy Override Switch.” Geez, and I was beginning to think it was a bomb!!! ~sigh~
I now know the purpose of the mysterious silver switch……the one that can reset my car, (with the proper secret code put into the stereo with those station memory buttons that I naively thought were just for my radio). It was the switch for those times when I’ve changed keys and/or drivers and confused the car and made it think it was being stolen and to prevent it from going into “defense mode” and shutting down the entire car and locking down the thief inside! It's that same button that with the use of the proper key in the door can shut off the alarm system when it’s beeping and flashing the lights. That same button caused one of Frank’s staff to laugh hysterically and comment, “Geez, you really didn’t know you have this Toy system on this thing and really don’t know the code for it?!? It’s a good thing you never lost your keys or played with that switch or hit it while you were driving because you would have been broke down on the side of the road, locked in your car and would have never figured out what to do!”
***Yeah, that would have been the pits on a foggy morning. I would have had to crawl out through the trunk, huh?***
So, after a 10 minute explanation of everything that little black box, along with a CD for my computer and a little remote control can do, I stood in utter shock. Then the reality started kicking in.....
You mean to tell me that for the past 3 years I have been able to start my car from my computer or from a remote control key chain? And I can set the temperature that I want it to be from inside my office? And it will defrost the doors and windows with the push of a button without ever touching the car? And that my key tells my car who to expect and what my driving habits are? And this box, determines from that if it’s really ME driving? And there’s an elaborate alarm system on it that will lock down the doors, hood and trunk to keep somebody from disabling it? And if they get past that, it will lock a thief down inside my car? And that there’s a timer on this thing that I can set to my own desires? AND that there’s an elaborate lighting system on it where I can choose my interior colors and under the dash colors and lights under the seats and even under the car that I never even knew existed?!?! And I can locate my car from my computer if my kids drive it or it gets stolen?!?!
So my car really does have a relationship with me?? And it really did know when DH was driving it rather than me?!? HOLY COW!!!!
In other words, I’m really NOT driving an "old lady car" but really instead driving a “sweeeeeeeet Street Toy” and never knew it?!?!
Now where the heck do I get one of those little remote control key chain thingies and that CD for my computer?!? I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW!
posted by Senati | 12:05 AM
1 Comments:
I am ROFLMAO
Senati only you this can happen to.
I still say you should write a
book.
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