Obliviousness

When I was younger man and my son was still a toddler I had beautiful black fastback Mustang with a Sun roof and a hot but ditzy wife. (Picture of her if you care)

The sun roof was hinged at the front and had this latching mechanism where if you held a little locking tab with your thumb then pulled the handle the BACK part of the window would tilt up.

I smoked back then. Now even as a smoker I hated nasty ashtrays so I used to just flip the sunroof up then I could hold the cigarette up close to that opening and the low pressure area would just SUCK the ash right off the butt and out. Loved it!

The other really neat thing about that was when you parked a black car in the Dallas sun you could leave that sunroof tilted up and hot air could escape out the top and keep your interior temps in the barely human habitable zone.

One year we drove that car to a family reunion 600 miles from home. It was not a great traveling car especially with a little one but hey, I had to show off my Mustang ya know? You see, back then I had not come out of the closet yet and I not even admitted to myself let alone anyone else yet that I was a nerd; I was still desperately trying to prove that I was indeed cool! (see that opening paragraph again! :) )

So we are at the reunion 600 miles from home and my wife asks for the keys to the car.
"Where are your keys?", I asked
"In my purse! I locked it in the car so I would not have to carry it around."
"Oh", that made sense to me.
5 minutes later.
"Honey, I locked your keys in the car too."
Weeeeee! At least we were close to home!

Luckily since it was summer I had left that sunroof tilted up for the heat to escape so now I am breaking long skinny branches off the tree so I can slid them in through that little slot and try to hit the power lock button on the door.

My father walks out and sees me poking tree limbs into my sunroof and asks, "What in the hell are you doing boy?" you know in that gentle concerned way only a father can.
"Trying to unlock the door."
"Your kidding? You locked your keys in?", in that helpful concearned way only a father can.
"Well Julia did."
"So where are her keys?"
"In there too."
"Mmmm. Ya know, son if you opened that sunroof it would be a lot easier."
"What? It is open?"
"No Open-open?"
"Whaaa?"
"Here..."

Dad reaches in front of me, holds down a little catch on the side of the latching mechanism, I heard a "Tooonk! " and he lifted the whole glass plate off the roof! Then he picks up my son, lowered him through the now gaping hole in the roof and says "Press the button!"

"That's cool Dad, I never knew it did that!"
"How long you had this car son?", you know in that gentle concerned way a father has.

"Well..."
"Here look at this.", he opens the hatchback and there is this shelf at the top with an elastic strap, "That is where your store the glass when it's out."
"OOOOoooooh! I wondered about that."
"Don't you know anything about your own car son?", he said in that gentle concerned way only a father can.

Well I can make it go vroom! :(

Yup, oblivious!