My Name is Elaine and I'm Here To Help

I was sitting on the hood of my Jeep outside the grocery store where it had spent the night with the keys locked inside.

The cops had come yesterday and, after several efforts, failed to pop the car locks.  Meanwhile, I tore up the house looking for my spare key, which may actually be in the glove compartment of the car.  I checked on a locksmith, but I didn't want to pay $140 for an after hours guy to come last night.

Instead I called in the morning and agreed to the locksmith's day rate and waited for a red panel truck from AAA Lock and Key -- that name is so generic there has to be one in every town across the country.  

I expected some guy with a butt crack to get out of the truck, rip the bejesus out of the inside of my door until he unlocked it, and then charge me an arm and a leg for his services.

Well, up drives the panel truck.  And out jumps the wiry, tan, effervescent and crisply turned out master car door opener, Elaine, a trained professional at opening locked car doors without using a key.

I wasn't expecting a woman.  Professional lock picking seems like one of those jobs that a guy would fall into because they generally have more practice heisting cars in high school.  But Elaine actually went to a special school to learn her craft.  And boy was she crafty.

After about twenty minutes of trying to make her assortment of curved metal "tools" pull up the lever that would release the lock, she came up with a completely different solution.

Taking a narrow bend rod, she wiggled it through the rubber trim around thetriangular side vent window of the Jeep.  Using a second metal rod, also bent, she worked the two together, using one to press the button that released the handle holding the window shut and the second rod to turn the handle itself. The whole process took less than five minutes.  Watching through the window on the other side of the car, I was mesmerized by her skill in working those two metal rods in tandem with each other.  It was like watching a xylophone player holding four sticks.  You can see their hands moving and hear the sound, but you have no idea how they know what they're doing.

Presto the window was opened.  She reached in and unlocked the door.  I was in.  I had never seen anyone perform a feat of manual dexterity quite so well. Man or woman. I told her I wished I had been able to videotape her efforts.  She was that fast and that good. 

That's the good news.  The bad news was that locking the keys in the car had just cost me $85.00. 

But it was worth the price of admission to watch such a great show of legal breaking and entering.