There have been some questions about my Houdini act, so I’ll set the record straight…
1) I am not the one that locked the keys in the car. I think that’s important to note. So, noted. 🙂
2) Our van is a 2007 Caravan, and doesn’t lend itself to jamming a coat hanger anywhere. Well, not with any actual hopes of doing anything useful.
3) I used the piece of plastic (a cheap cutting board) to jam in between the door and the car. The baffles that prohibit stuff getting jammed in there are pretty easily (read: hour of jamming and wedging) fooled by a piece of stiff yet flexible plastic.
4) Once I had the plastic half in and half out, I poked a hole in the plastic and set a snare with the string.
5) Using physics to both bend the plastic so it would properly lasso the lock mechanism, and gravity to aid in the targeting system, I looped a slip knot around the lock and snugged it up.
6) I shimmied the string up the plastic sheet and then tugged to unlock the door.
7) The theft deterrent system immediately honked my victory to the neighborhood. 🙂
For those of you that are visual learners, here’s a reenactment of the whole thing:
I would say “there’s something wrong with you”, but well, I seem to say that a lot to you. And besides, that was pretty genius. However, you spent over an hour doing all of that? And you saved $57? See, I have absolutely NO patience. I know, you’d think I would have being a bookkeeper, right? But no. I’d have tried for 5 minutes, starting call the thing names, kicked the door panel in and had to pay $400 to have someone open it and fix the door panel. *laugh*
The thing that most impresses me is your self-control. Even my reenactment would have been an obscenity lace tirade.
You’re my hero.
One more question… did Donna look at you and roll her eyes when you told her you were going to go outside and film a reenactment? Just wondering…
Genius! That was pure awesome there.
OMG, that’s a lot of patience that I do NOT have.
Ingenious, Shawn! Am I right to assume that if I need your help with this, your services can be procured for under 50 bucks?
I see a great little part-time business her. Perhaps two if you film the action and make training videos.
They thought they had stolen enough cars…they thought they were out of the game…they were wrong. This summer, Shawn Powers and Angelina Jolie star in Gone in 60 Minutes! All the thrills and chills of the original, but longer.
Ingenious! That won’t work for me, but if I ever need to get into a 2007 Caravan, now I know.
Once, when I was driving an ’88 Chevy Astro Van I locked my keys in, the guy from the towing company drove a couple of rubber wedges in between the door and the body of the car and then used a stiff wire with a hook on the end to fish out the keys.