Our car doesn’t use a key. Instead is uses the fob you see above, and I don’t like this system very much. For me it seems to create more problems than it solves. I was alway have my car keys in my pocket, so I attached the fob to the keyring with the house and mail keys. I started running into problems the second night after we had bought the car.
We were at a New Year’s Eve party at a friends house. I had parked the car outside in the snow in front of their house and I had the key in pocket. When I sat down at their bay window, I glanced outside at our new car, and watched as the back hatch opened--(when I sat down the pressure on the fob in my pocket was enough to press one of the buttons that caused the hatch to open.)
That proved to be a continual problem. It seemed every time I sat down with the fob in my pocket, to put on my shoes or boots inside the house by the carport door, some button would get pushed and the car would start honking, the doors would lock, or the back hatch would open. I hated it. I just couldn’t keep the thing in my pocket without causing problems.
To solve the problem, I tried attaching the fob to a carabiner which I attached to the belt loops on my jeans, but I always was in fear that a belt loop would break and I would loose the fog. Then I happened upon another solution--I fixed the fob onto a string which I wore around my neck.
I have been using this method for a few weeks now, but it too has problems: I always forget to put the “necklace” on. I get dressed, put on my shoes and jacket, lock the house, then walk out to the car. I get in, press the button to start the car, and get the message on the dashboard that I have no key. It is then that I realize I don’t have the fob, and have to go back into the house to get it.
Sometimes that doesn’t matter because Joan also has a fob and when she is in the passenger seat, the presence of her fob will allow me to drive the car without mine.
Yesterday I found out that this too created problems.
We drove up to Prince George for a shopping trip. Because Joan had her fob, I didn’t realize that I didn’t have mine.
“Oh well,” I thought, “as long as she has her’s there should be no problems.” So we continued on and got up to PG.
As usual we did a lot of shopping at Costco. While I waited to be served at the checkout counter, Joan wanted to do some shopping in a nearby store, so she left and walked over there, while I got checked out.
That done, I wheeled my full cart of purchases out through the busy Costco parking lot to the car, When I got there I realized the car was locked and I couldn’t open it because I didn’t have my fob, and Joan was away in the other store.
Then I thought, “I can call her with my seldom used cell phone,” unfortunately, I had left in the locked car, so that couldn’t happen.
What to do? I didn’t want to leave my full cart of purchased items alone in the parking lot while I walked over to the other store. I couldn’t wheel my cart over to the other store and take it inside while I searched for Joan. I was stymied.
Then I noticed a woman sitting in the passenger seat in a nearby car. I asked her if she was going to be there for a while. She said yes, and I then explained my problem and asked her if she would watch over my cart of items while I ran over to the nearby store and got my wife. She said she would and I sprinted across the big parking lot to get Joan.
I thought I could just get the fob from Joan and race right back to put the stuff in the car, but there was another problem.
When Joan had walked into the store, an unidentified insect bit her in the neck, and it was getting all red and swollen. Joan has allergies and so this was getting scary for her. I found her and held the item she was going to buy while she got an antihistamine from her purse. She took it and sat on a nearby bench inside the door while I had to wait in a long line to buy the item Joan had found.
I was getting anxious to get back to the car, because I didn’t know how long the woman watching my cart would wait. Finally I got through the cash register counter, and Joan seemed to be okay, so got the fob and raced back across the parking lot to the car.
Luckily, the woman was still sitting there, and so was my cart. I unlocked the car, loaded the things from the cart into the back of the car and by that time, Joan had walked back to join me. So in the end everything worked out, but I still wish I could come up with some solution with this fob that would work better for me.
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