Is It Mocking Me?

Two separate occasions involving the Prius are leading me to think that I'm being mocked. And this I do not appreciate. And after I've had nothing but positive things to say about it. This month's gasoline bill was $31 and some change. And that's for a whole month for both cars. Nothing but compliments and accolades.

The first incident was when Tyler and I were making one of his Going To College Shopping Trips During Which It Is Impossible to Spend Less Than One Hundred and Fifty Dollars. As usual, we were yacking when we got out of the car and I pushed the little button in the handle to lock it and it made a long beeping sound. I was walking away when I realized that this was not the normal short beeping sound it usually makes, so I walked back to the car and it was still unlocked. I pushed it again and got the same long beeping sound. I got in to make sure I hadn't left the key in there and I hadn't. I tried to lock it using the button on the key and got the same long beeping sound. Tyler finally got in and promptly diagnosed the problem. I hadn't turned the dang car off. How embarrassing was that? Well, I'll tell you how embarrassing it was. I didn't tell Ron for a week.

A couple of nights ago I was getting ready to go to bed (it was about 1:30 a.m.) and I got up one more time to see if Tyler had come home. I'm staring out the window and all of the sudden I see this red light flashing inside the car. I stared some more. Yep. It was blinking. So, I got dressed, went downstairs and outside to see what was going on. I checked to make sure all the doors were locked, which they were. I unlocked it, got inside and opened up the glove compartment (one of about four) and got out the manual. There I was, sitting in the car, with the door open, lights on trying to think like the Toyota employee who wrote this manual in order to figure out what I should look for in the index. In my mind, there should be a heading in the index that says "Red Blinking Lights." They should have two indices (?): One for Left Brainers and one for Right Brainers. But, then I'd have to remember which brain I am. Do I even have one? Okay, I found the panel display. There's a symbol of a car that has a key inside it that says Theft Protection Signal. I look up at the blinking light. It's the shape of a car, but I can't tell if it's a key inside it or a straight line. A straight line would mean I needed to Take the Vehicle to the Dealership Immediately. My palms started to sweat.

I finally gave up and locked the door. The red light was still blinking. I tossed around the idea of waking up Ron, but that's usually never a good idea once he's sound asleep. He gets very disoriented and loud. So, I called Tyler. About eighteen times (no kidding). The first two I figured he had his music up too loud. The third through 18th times I was imagining all sorts of dire scenarios that involved a dark road and the Emergency Room. I finally reached him and we had a nice conversation about how a cell phone's really of no use if you can't hear the ringer, which, of course, was his excuse. I then abandoned my nagging and proceeded to ask him about the blinking red light, to which he responded with no useful information. He wondered why I was obsessing about this at a time when most decent people were tucked comfortably in bed. I said because I'd never seen this blinking (I really said "blinking," not some swear word) light before. He found me back in the car when he got home around 2:00 a.m. and we sat there together for about ten minutes. After the first minute he said it probably meant that the Anti Theft Protection system was engaged because he had the same thing on his car. I just sat there for another nine minutes, repeatedly flipping through the manual because I couldn't find that stupid symbol with the key in it. I truly thought I was going mad, mad, mad.

He finally persuaded me to come look at his car. Sure enough there was a red blinking light. So I went back inside, tried to creep up our creaky stairs quietly and was met with a disoriented Ron saying, "Where have you been." When I told him about the light he said, "Oh, that's the Anti Theft Protection light." He didn't seem to think it was all odd that I was out in the back yard in the middle of the night. He knows me like a book. A book straight off the psychiatric shelf. Anyway, he promptly went back to sleep.

Not me. I thought I could hear, ever so faintly, the Prius mocking me. Blink. Blink. Hee hee. Blink. Blink. Hee hee. Blink. Blink. It'd better watch it's back. I'm not one to be messed with. I've got a pair of wire cutters and I am not afraid to use them.