Yesterday I was down the valley at Carrefour nice and early. I had a busy day in front of me. I decided to give the van a clean at the jet wash. It never stays clean for long in the snow, but it’s good to wash the dirt and salt off now and again.
So I cleared out the mess of tissues and fag packets in the door pocket and failed to notice as I shut the door that I’d locked the driver’s side. There it was. All doors locked, keys in the ignition and even worse, my iPhone sitting on the front seat. The spare key was on my girlfriend’s keyring, 40km away and the number to call her on my phone. Merde. How stupid and annoying.
Suddenly stripped of my 21st century toy – my portable brain-replacement – my iPhone, I was helpless. To find the number I needed the Internet, to call it I needed a phone and that’s all before I had to explain to my lovely girlfriend that due to my blunder she’d have to take a few hours out of her busy day to come and rescue me.
I did have a notebook and a pen with me. A low-tech solution to a high tech problem is often the best approach and luckily at some point I’d jotted down a number for one of the ski instructors my girlfriend works with. So with a 5 Euro phonecard and a short struggle to re-learn how to use a public payphone, I was back on the grid.
I made a few calls and retired to to the coffee shop to wait for the cavalry which was arriving directly.
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