Maybe it's trite but I can always be wrong. Try not to be wrong.

The front that I have any common sense continues to fade.

I drove down to a Discount Tire Co. (from whom I bought my tires from a year ago) 5 miles from my apartment. After talking to a mechanic, I walked back to my truck to drive it into the shop. Suddenly, I notice my keys are not where they belong; they are still in the ignition, windows up and doors shut tight.

With widened eyes and a pit in my stomach, the gravity of the problem sunk in. I didn’t know the exact location of the spare key at home. My roommate was deaf, and I didn't have his phone number. I'd recently the charity card on my only friends out here, and harassing them on a Saturday night was out of the question. Five miles wasn't too far to run, but I had no house key and no compass to ensure I keep going the right way. I called a local towing company, and they quoted $50 and 20 minutes to arrive. The garage had no tools for getting in locked doors, not even a coat hangar or wire.

Holding to the Hitchhikers' Guide motto, I gave myself a minute to calm down and decided to try plan Z, "Mike's sheer abilities vs the elements." After staring at my doors for a few minutes, I formulated a plan. I had to pry open the top edge of the door and find a way to roll down the window. The shop could only offer a couple 14" breaker bars and some paper towels to assist my cause.

Wrapping one of the bars in a paper towel I slid it in through the top door corner and worked it downward until I'd bought myself a half an inch. Slowly tapping it to the left and inserting the second bar, I made a quarter inch gap at the top centerline. Unfortunately, the window lever was two feet down, and I had to pull it UP (as opposed to pushing it DOWN which is much easier). Looking around for something long and skinny, I unscrewed my antennae. "What else?...." The antennae was no good for pulling and too flexible for leverage. I found a 2' piece of twine in my truck be and fastened a loop to the end of the antennae.

Though the garage had closed, one of the workers stuck around to help me. I laid on top of the cab, poking, probing, and trying to move the window lever while the garage-man pulled down on the small window gap to decrease resistance in the lever. It was a great sight as testified by a small group of onlookers randomly hanging out in the parking lot.

A half an hour later, we'd succeeded! The onlookers cheered with almost patronizing enthusiasm. I raised my fists and cheered back; that night, both my absent-mindedness and genius merited recognition.

Ender Will Save Us All - Dashboard Confessional