Knock on wood...

A picture's worth a thousand words... but this time "a thousand words" will have to do.

Maybe we should never have named our cars because since we named them, they seem to have taken on personalities of their own.

Our newer car, Repeat, came equipped with an alarm system which is designed, of course, to deter car theft. Well, this alarm is apparently multi-purpose or thinks it needs to see a little more action.

At random times, the horn has sounded its intermittent beep when apparently nothing has been anywhere near to it. We dash to the door, grab the remote and poke it to turn off the alarm. Then a week or so ago, we were driving down the road "just minding our own business," as Jeff Allen would say, when suddenly the horn started blaring. We were almost to a convenience store, so we pulled onto the edge of the parking area and turned off the engine, but the horn kept blaring. Ken did a fast restart so we could move to a much larger shopping center parking lot a little ways down the road and the horn stopped. * sigh * No rhyme or reason why it started or stopped, but whatever!

I have no idea who coined the phrase, "knock on wood," but we all know what it means, and I should've done it recently after responding, "Not much," to LaDonna's "What's been happening?"

It was either that night or the following night that at 4:10 AM, the car horn started blaring... and I don't mean the normal, intermittent beep, beep, beep. Oh, no! It was constant blaring. Ken grabbed the keys (keyring) and dashed to the front porch where he pushed repeatedly on the remote, waving it around from one angle to another as the horn continued hollering.

He ran down the steps to the car, tried to unlock the door, but the remote nor the keys would unlock it. He hurried to the front passenger door and tried again and was finally unable to unlock with the key. Now remember, the horn is blaring constantly all this time at 4:10 AM! He reached across to insert the key into the ignition, started the car then turned it off. No change. He stretched across to unlock the driver's door manually, then jumped out and ran around the back of the car to get in on the driver's side. He started the car again, put it in reverse, back into park, turned off the engine. No change. By this time, of course, lights were coming on in houses around us--one neighbor even came out on her front porch poking her remote at her car! lol

Robe and slippers notwithstanding, Ken suddenly decided he had to get the car out of the community, so he started the engine again and took off... well, as fast as you can take off trying not to break the 10 MPH speed limit within the community and get ousted! Also as fast as you can take off and wobble over 5-6 diagonal speed bumps. We both thought that if he drove a little way and turned off and restarted the engine, the horn might stop like it had before. (Can you tell we've accumulated a MicroSoft repair mentality?!) So he drove to the nearest parking area, tried off/on. No change. Drove onto main highway to get away from residential area, horn blaring, but thankfully not encountering much traffic--duh, it's 4:20 AM!

A sudden inspiration hit him that maybe someone would be on duty at the Buick dealer down the road, so he headed there with mixed emotions. Hoping someone would be there and yet not really wanting to interact with anyone because of being attired in robe and slippers! He turned off the main highway into the dealership, then turned left to enter the dealership, and * whew!! * the horn stopped. Like a kid who knows he's on the brink of consequence. Incredibly relieved, he made a U-turn toward home.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I listened to him driving/blaring out of the community, praying the landlord wouldn't run these peasants off her land and figured he would drive somewhere to do the off/on bit before coming back in about three minutes. As three minutes became five, ten, then fifteen, I changed my prayers to keep Ken calm and rational, not to encounter a policeman--he didn't have his driver's license with him, and desperation for the horn to please stop its yelling. Realizing that things were obviously not going well, I decided I needed to go find him and at least offer moral support. I scurried around, dressing, then grabbing clothes, belt and shoes for Ken, cell phone, keys and purse for me, writing him a note to call my cell phone if he should come home and find me gone. My hand was on the doorknob when I heard a car door slam. He was home!! It was 4:40 AM.

You can only imagine the state of mind he was in recounting to me what had happened. Wearily, he dragged himself to bed, praying, pleading, begging that we wouldn't have a Repeat performance!

No less than twenty minutes later, just shortly after 5:00 AM, what to our wondering ears should we hear? You got it: our constantly blaring horn! To our credit, in just a very few minutes, Ken was dressed (I hadn't undressed--a name like Faith was lost on me at this point!), had grabbed up wallet, keys, etc, and we both had dashed out to the car, hopped in, and raced through the 10 MPH zone and over the 5-6 diagonal speed bumps, and reached the nearby local Lowe's-to-Walmart parking lot. We tried the off/on routine several times, driving around the empty parking lot between each attempt, again to no avail. Suddenly, as mysteriously as it had started, it stopped.

Since the remote was useless to lock, unlock, open the trunk, etc, we decided it needed a new battery, so I entered Walmart to purchase a replacement. New battery in place, the remote worked except that it didn't emit a "chirp" when we locked the car. Hey, we weren't about to complain. You gotta be kidding! We also weren't about to return home. What guarantee was there that the horn wouldn't start blaring again?! So we parked in a proper parking spot over in the Lowe's territory and reclined our seats to doze there until a "decent" hour. If we were in for an encore, we wanted it to be at least after daylight had come!

Thankfully, we have had no further occurrences! * KNOCK ON WOOD!! *