Locked In

As an antidote to theological claptrap a tale containing humour, escapology, mobile phones, relationships and our hero making an idiot of himself. Let us begin.

We drove to our friends for a birthday meal yesterday. On the journey Mrs WWA took a business call. I don't know why someone running a south of England chain of shops got a call from the Caribbean on a Sunday afternoon either but she told me to go on in when we arrived and she would join me when she had finished the call.

'Have you got keys to the car?' I asked carefully and clearly before I left it. 'Yes' she said without breaking her conversational stride to the West Indies.

So I got out, fetched the things I needed out of the boot and committed my only, minor error. You know when someone says something like 'Don't flush the loo I'm right behind you' and you agree but still flush it because you always do as you're clean and tidy and nice. I clicked the car key fob as I walked away, thus locking the car.

Some minutes later J, aged 8, said 'Why is that car flashing?' I looked up and my car was flashing. I went out and, following an enormous wave of appreciation for the quality of my hosts' double glazing, noticed that Mrs WWA was waving from the car, which had a very loud alarm sounding.

I got my keys and disabled it and let her out.

'It's the third time it's sounded' she said not very patiently and in a way that suggested I might find ways to stay away from her for as long as possible after the meal or at least beyond throwing distance.

'I asked if you had the key,' I offered.

'I forgot I was in your car,' she told me without ever letting me feel I wasn't the dummy here.

So the moral is, if on your quiet estate there is someone in a car waving while the alarm goes off you should ignore them. Probably not a thief. Just a wife who has been accidentally locked in the car by her husband.