Sunday, February 22, 2009

Computerized keys...bah, humbug

I recently returned from a trip to Texas to visit my mother, my husband's and father's graves, a couple of old friends, and to take care of some business. The trip, alas, proved to be an almost non-stop series of problems, mishaps and out-and-out disasters, beginning with my drive to the airport in Portland (at 3:30 in the morning) in a fog that was so thick I frequently could not see the white lines on the road. The only way I ever managed to go above 40 miles an hour was by following the tail lights of the occasional 18-wheeler that would pass me, the driver going as fast as if he could see. Unfortunately, those guiding lights kept disappearing on me, which I could not understand, since I was doing my darnedest to keep up with them. "Don't disappear!" I would yell, when I would see those two red lights wavering, fading in and out up ahead. And the next moment they would be gone, and I would yell "Where the hell are you disappearing to?!" and would be forced to drop my speed at once, because I absolutely could not see but a few feet ahead.

You have to keep in mind that in most of Maine you don't have a lot of traffic on the highways in the middle of the night, the way you do in many states. No towns, no lights, no traffic, except for the very occasional mad trucker. It was a very tension-producing drive, especially since time was marching on; it was obviously going to take me much longer to get to the airport than it usually did. And that's how my trip began.

But that's not what I want to talk about. I rented a car when I arrived at the airport in San Antonio, visited with my mother that afternoon and evening of my arrival, then drove the next morning to Terrell, the small town 30 miles east of Dallas where my husband is buried, then the 90 miles to Ft. Worth, where I planned to spend that Friday night and the following night with a friend, returning to San Antonio Sunday morning. That was the plan.

But on Saturday tragedy struck. I managed to lose the keys (I had been given two) to my rental car. Keys have always been the bane of my existence. I long ago learned to have duplicate house/office/car keys all over the place, due to my penchant for losing same. If I had been smart, which is to say if I'd thought of it, I would have separated the two keys I was given at the car rental place, and put one into my purse, which I do not lose. But it never occurred to me that I might lose a key.

When I was finally forced to face the fact that I had, indeed, lost both keys – this was after looking every conceivable place in my friend's house at least three times, and paying $55 for a locksmith to come open my locked car, as I thought the keys might be on the back seat under some maps that were lying there (we won't go into why I thought this) – it was about four in the afternoon. I called Thrifty, hoping they would be able to supply me with duplicate keys. They explained that new keys would have to be made; they would call a locksmith for me ("Oh, great, I thought, I just sent one off). But when I talked to them again they said that the two locksmiths they had spoken with had said the keys would have to be made by the dealer, as they would have to be programmed. And getting the car to the dealer would obviously mean a towing fee.

Better and better, huh? And since it was almost five on a Saturday I ended up having to wait until Monday morning to have the work done, losing a day and a night that I had planned to spend back in San Antonio, with my mother.

But here's my question; here's my beef. Why computerized keys!? If my keys had not had to be programmed any locksmith could have made me a key, and I could have been on way Saturday evening. Instead of having to pay $240, plus the towing fee, it would have cost me, what, $5? That's how much it would have cost to replace the key for my '96 Toyota (I called my local Toyota dealer to find out). And here's the thing: presumably people who own these new cars with the computerized keys have to pay the same outrageous charge to have any lost keys reproduced. Why would we put up with that? Why is it necessary to have computerized keys? What was the matter with good old-fashioned, $5 keys? Why on earth does absolutely everything have to be computerized? Just because it can be? I eagerly await an answer.

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