I was driving away from J's house one day when I realized I had a book in my car I forgot to give him. Sometimes my van, Otie, doesn't like to turn on in the cold, so I left him running while I brought the book to J inside his house. When I came back out, I found out that Otie has a mind of his own, and he thought it would be funny to lock me out! My purse, my keys, my spare key, everything was locked inside except my phone which was in my pocket.
I ran back inside to tell J, and we turned to - what else? - YouTube. Who hasn't gotten locked out of their car before? People like to document that kind of stuff. We found a bunch of companies who unlock cars professionally but they used real wedge tools... we didn't have any real tools like that, but we did have a garage full of potentially helpful stuff, so J & I went on a little treasure hunt.
Armed with 2 wire coat hangers, 3 paint scrapers, a hammer, and two door stoppers, we marched back out to Otie.
J shoved the door stopper into the top corner of the passenger door and wedged it in deep with the hammer.
The paint scrapers were useless. J had cut & bent the hangers and they worked alright except they weren't strong enough to put force on the manual lock - we had to hook it over the lip of the lock and pull back. Not easy!!
J remembered a stronger wire wound up in a red spool and man, that really did the trick! It even had a ready-made hook on the end. It took a LOT of tries.J maneuvered the wire while I held the flashlight (an app on my phone) and gave him verbal directions - he couldn't see the inside of the latch from where he was standing.
We didn't give up, and suddenly - boom! - we'd flipped the latch! We opened the door ASAP so it couldn't re-lock, and Otie was free. Through teamwork, we did it!! :)
Yeah, I don't know what Otie thought he would gain by locking me out - he really does like me - but I don't think it will happen again! :)
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