Friday is when the Farm Side runs

This ran several years ago

What do you get when you put three harried women in a Wal-Mart parking lot on a really hot, humid day and give them two sets of car keys and two sets of errands to do? You get a disaster of unprecedented proportions that’s what. Even the time the sliding door on the side of the minivan fell off and the kids and I had to tie it on with dog ropes so we could get home couldn’t compare.

On this fateful day we were two days to camp week and counting. Things had already begun to get crazy. If you don’t think removing three of the five workers at this place for seven days doesn’t create difficulties, just try it sometime. Everyone was spending the week trying to get all the normal work caught up, digging worms in the off hours, marshaling fishing poles and life preservers during spare moments and planning, planning, planning all the rest of the time. The guys were chopping hay that day so the girls and I rushed off to purchase two cans of coffee and two packs of bathroom tissue and two of just about every other staple you could imagine. We were hoping that the younger kids and I could go to camp and Liz and Ralph could stay home in comfort, supplied with all the essentials. I was still gathering extra dog food and paper plates when the girls got bored and asked to go to the car. Because I have been known to lock my keys in the car I carry two sets of car keys. One is the big set marked with a cow neck chain tag that we actually use to drive the car. The other is a little ring with a car key and a house key that I keep in my pocket. Always. I gave them the little set because it was handy and went on shopping.

By the time I got to the car, I was hot, tired and footsore so I asked them to go back inside to pickup the photos I had left for one-hour developing. With all the ambition that is normal for teenagers, they whined and refused. I dragged myself back out of the car, leaving my purse behind.

It is awful heavy.

Naturally at the last second they decided to come too and jumped out of the car, locked the doors and ran to catch up.

Leaving both sets of keys in the car, one in the ignition and one in my Conservationist Magazine commemorative tote bag.

The fun began. One of the windows in the back of the van was open, you know, the big one that just springs out from the side of the car about two inches. Could we stick an arm through the crack and tug a lock up? Nope, those darned engineers must have planned it that way. Liz went back for some metal coat hangers. Could we twist three of them together and snatch the little key ring out of the ignition where it dangled so temptingly? Nope, three coat hangers just bent and twisted and hooked everything but the keys. We caught plastic bags and seat belts; we snagged the steering wheel and newspaper, but no keys. Could we get the dangly handles on my tote, which sat so tantalizingly close between the front seats. Nope, not that either. The coat hangers were just too wimpy to stay straight.

I went down in the woods alongside the lot and found a long skinny poplar stick. We all had our hair tied up in braids or knots, so we sacrificed our hair ties to fasten a coat hanger hook onto the stick and tried using that to get the elusive purse handle. It didn’t work. People pointed and laughed. Little old ladies offered advice.

Finally in disgust I stomped off toward the store to try to buy a nice straight (and hopefully cheap) fishing pole for our key fishing expedition. We figured Alan could fish with it after we were done. If we ever actually got the keys that is.

Just as I reached the door Becky came racing up. Liz had hooked the purse handles. Naturally, the ungainly thing caught under the edge of the back seat and the hook in our hanger threatened to straighten out if we pulled too hard. Of course the stick wouldn’t quite push it out from under the seat.

Finally after an hour and a half of guddling around with two coat hanger hooks, the bag was hauled up against the window in weary triumph. However, no one could get their fingers into the side pocket where the keys resided. I pulled the edges flat against the edge of the window with just the tips of my fingers, since that is all there was room for. Liz wedged her arm between the glass and the frame and dropped the various items her fingers contacted in the pocket onto the floor of the car.

Suddenly, success. She caught the very tip of a key between the ends of two fingers and fished the whole set through the window.

We danced around the empty parking space next to our old minivan singing, “Boo yah, farm girls rule.” We did it and we were darned proud of it.

Why didn’t we use the cell phone Liz had in her pocket to call the guys back home? It would have been easier.

First they were most likely out in the fields and wouldn’t even know we had called for hours. Second, asking for help from the guys doesn’t come all that easy to us country girls. We are used to dealing with our own flat tires, doors falling off the car and other such catastrophes. And third, we were just too darned embarrassed to admit that we had done something as stupid as lock, not one, but two sets of keys in the car at the same time.

****This is one huge advantage of being privileged to write a weekly column for the local newspaper. When you do something staggeringly dumb you can make a joke of it and actually get paid for your pain......