Locked Out

“Du-UUUUUUDE!”

“What now? You got that stuff in the car yet? We gotta get it where it’s goin’, an’ the wheels back to George, he’s waitin’.”

“I can’t, dude!”

“Why the hell not?”

“I unlocked the car with the clicker so’s I wouldn’t hafta mess with it with my arms full of boxes, went and picked up those boxes, got to the car and it was locked again!”

“So keep yer fingers off the buttons next time.”

“My fingers weren’t nowhere near the buttons, dude! The fob’s still back in the house! An’ I made sure the frickin’ bolt bucket was unlocked.”

“Well, lucky for you I saw that you left the key fob in the house, so when I heard ya I picked it up and unlocked the car again. You’d have noticed if y’weren’t so busy yellin’. So y’oughta be able to quit whinin’ now, an’ put the stuff in the back seat like I … well, I’ll be …”

“See?”

“An automatic relockin’ feature. The perfect accessory for south LA.”

“But, dude, we don’t live in south LA. We live on an island in the middle of nowhere. The worst thing that’s happened here in the last five years is when old lady Carter tripped and spilled a jugful of communion grape juice on the preacher. I’m stupid enough to drive in south LA, never mind park there, I deserve what happens to me.”

“Y’oughta be able to program this thingy somehow. Set the time before relockin’ …”

“How ’bout turnin’ it off?”

“Y’mean like the seat belt chime? Don’t like yer chances … Ah, there it is.”

“Manual programmin’? That’s lame. If they’re gonna bother, they could do it right.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Link the fob to the GPS system. GPS system looks up the crime stats f’r anyplace you’re at, relays the info to the fob. Fob sets the relockin’ feature based on the crime stats, like ‘off’ for here. Which would be gnarly.”

“And for south LA?”

“Car don’t even let you stop, dude.”

“Right, dude. That’s one car I won’t be buyin’.”

“Uh huh. And we’ve begged this one off a George b’cause …”

“Otherwise we’re walkin’. I get it, dude, I get it. Now can we get this car loaded b’fore George comes lookin’ for us? An’ not for friendlies?”