Can anyone break into my car?

Suddenly, I become aware that I’m shivering. As the discovery is made, my mood drops to a new low, further down even, than when, 4 hours ago I realised my housemates were not in, and that locking my keys in the car at work was definitely the silliest thing Ive done today.

But no. This is not a tale of woe, I'm not a despondent ‘locked out of his house’ guy who is miserable for the sake of it. There is some stinking conspiracy unfolding tonight and I am right in the middle of it where the smell is thick. It hums. Since returning from the pub, Ive spent the past 22 minutes on my doorstep thinking about probabilities, so how about this:

Since getting my car 5 years ago, this is the second time that I have locked the keys in it. Lets say I drive, on average, every other day. That makes this key locked in incident a 1 in 450 probability. Normally it would be no problem, as id just go home and my housemates would be in. They’re not, I think I mentioned it earlier. For them not to be in after work is unusual, but nothing more than a 1 in 5 chance. For them still to be out now however, at 8:24pm, is remarkable, somewhere up nearer 1 in 150. Still, even if I lost my keys, and my housemates were out, Id still have my phone to give them a call. Well, no, I forgot that this morning too. I can count on one hand the number of times in the past 5 years that Ive not had one of the big three* at my disposal- and now there are two missing simultaneously. I feel sick.

In addition to this already remarkably unlikely list, I was on TV tonight (the 6.30 local news- I later found out it was only my hand, back and arm, but that’s not the point) and now Ive missed it. Being on TV is rare for me, maybe 4 times in my life, so missing it sucked, and also added a 1 in 2500 chance into the mix. Already, the chances of all these independent variables happening in one day are at something like 1 in 84 billion.

“You should go and buy yourself a lottery ticket” my mocking half-self thinks.

“You really should be quiet” I think back, and manage a grin.

Earlier, upon realising my predicament, I walked up to the Internet café and spent an hour learning from Google how to “break into car” because my “keys locked inside.” I then went for a walk around the block, went in the ‘rough’ local pub, which turned out to be not so, and am now stood in my porch, watching the world go by. Since no one can see me from where I am, I keep getting snippets from people’s conversations as they walk past. My favourite so far is from a young Asian couple,

GIRL: ‘….well how do you think it was for me without you here for a week. I had no one to cuddle at night’

BOY: Ooooooh, well it wasn’t really my fault, I didn't……..’

Ive also just seen a white transit with ‘RW Contractors’ on the side of it hit the wing-mirror off of my neighbours white transit, spraying splinters of mirror all over the road. I didn’t think that vans ‘did’ their own, I sense Ive just witnessed a rare taboo, like that time when some BBC wildlife team filmed a lioness eat her cub and couldn’t believe what their high definition monitors were showing them. I feel a little strange, which is better than cold at least. I go and tell my neighbour, but he seems more surprised to see me than bothered about the mirror. He is smaller than I thought he was, and after walking round the glass on the floor a few times he says, ‘oh bast@rds’ a few times and then returns to his house as quickly as he emerged.

The next thing I see is good. Just as I was creating some scenarios in my head that facilitated all of my housemates being out for the rest of time, ‘Tish returns to the house, and even better than that, she has her keys.

Joy o joys, I'm in the house, and suddenly everything smells sweet again.

*The big three are your wallet, keys and mobile. Their order of importance can vary significantly depending on what you may be up to at a given time. For example, if Ive just bought a new mobile on a 18 month contract with no insurance, then the mobile might creep up the rankings from its traditional third spot. Similarly, if I'm on a surfing weekend at Woolacombe and I cant find my keys, they suddenly become a Roger Federer-esque number 1, with nothing else even coming close.
(*While on holiday I have been known to promote my camera into the hastily renamed big four, but this has only ever been a temporary measure.