TO LOCK OR NOT TO LOCK

The car was in the garage, the door was shut. Someone opened the door and had a party. Part of the party was to put a tomato on the driver's seat. When I went to work early that morning, I did not think to check the seat for tomatoes. Yes, I sat on it. Then, I started locking the doors of the car in the garage. No, I don't know who did it.

In these days of automatic lock fobs, there really isn't any reason to walk away from your vehicle with securing it, it there? After all, if you have more than one vehicle, the fob can be programmed for more than one.

When I came to Fargo with a car that needed to have the key to lock up, I was poo-pooed for always locking. It was a lesson I had learned from the owner of the company I worked for in Lawrence. I also learned to carry the keys, lest I be an hour away and the wind blows the latch shut while unloading oxygen bottles. Believe me, that on call person was not happy about coming to get the vehicle opened because the town had no lock smith.

Is it called breaking and entering if you leave your windows down and your doors unlocked? Well, yes, because you are taking property that is not yours. It is a good lesson learned the hard way.

Odd, isn't it, for those of us who grew up in small towns where no one even used a key to start a vehicle. It was an open switch. I didn't even have a key for my car. Who needed it?

And what about Donnie J who left his car running in front of the theater on Sunday afternoons? It is now a crime in Fargo to leave an unlocked car running but they will allow it in the winter if it is locked. Odd what weather allows, isn't it?

Several decades ago, it was prime play to go to the welding shop and play gangster in the old cars with horsehair upholstery. Those were all push button start. Which vehicle is it now that has push button start?

Here all this time we could have been playing, "Back to the Future".

Lock up!

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