A Wintry Adventure

It is a cold and blustery day in the city. Clouds loom menacingly overhead, threatening snow with every breath of wind. A red car pulls up across the street from the convention center downtown, and a woman clad in jeans and a purple hooded sweatshirt steps out. She grabs a couple of boxes from the back seat, and runs across the street, disappearing quickly into the building to escape the biting wind. Suddenly, the passenger door opens, and a blonde wearing jeans and a black coat with Mickey Mouse on the back emerges slowly. She stops for a moment, with a puzzled look on her face, then shrugs, steps back, and closes the car door. It shuts with an ominous sort of "whoomp" sound.

The passenger walks nonchalantly over to the driver's side of the car, and grabs the handle to open it, but the door stays shut! Stunned, she jiggles the handle three or four times, but the car remains stubbornly locked. With great trepidation, she returns to the other side of the car. She hesitantly reaches for the handle to the passenger side door, and gives it a tug. No response. Again she tries the jiggling trick, because it worked so well the last time, but to no avail. Nervously, she awaits the return of the driver to the now-stranded car.

The driver emerges from the convention center, triumphant in her delivery of the requested items. She approaches the vehicle curiously, wondering why the passenger is standing outside the car in the freezing wind, rather than inside the car, which is obviously still running. "Is something wrong?", she asks when she comes into speaking range. The passenger sheepishly replies, "I got out of the car, and went around to the driver side so I could move the car across the street, but when I got there, the door wouldn't open."

"You locked my keys in the car?" The driver sighs, and returns to the convention center to call her parents, who thankfully are in possession of her spare key. Upon her return, the two wait by the car, defiant of the icy wind, which seems determined to freeze them where they stand. The wind seems to have slowed time as well; the minutes seem to drag more with each one that passes. At long last, the parents arrive, and the driver dashes across to thank them profusely before returning to unlock the patiently waiting (and WARM!) vehicle.

My toes are still thawing.

--The Passenger