This is a guestpost brought to you by the patient @ponywithhiccups
It was day two of our roadtrip, we just bought spare circuit-breakers for the "scary" house, went sight-seeing, bought some food and had our daily dose of internets. I was just thinking how everything was going to work out money-wise; especially if there woudn't be any emergencies.
Everything was going well.
Until we got to the car, where it became painfully obvious that I am traveling with an idiot. Or a child. Or idiot child.
"Where are the car keys? Did I put them in your bag?"
No he did not.
And he did not put them in his bag either.
He put them in his pants pocket, with the stuffed toy keychain hanging out. Pants that are too big, too loose, and any time he sits down pens and coins fall out immediately and silently ...
You see where this is going ...
He lost the damned keys! The only car keys we had! The only keys for this car in existence. ~450 km from home, 7 km from the "scary" house. Probably the only thing we're not supposed to lose.
Now what?
I had two options: I could have yelled at him, or we could have calmly retraced our steps.
Option one was pointless, so we walked back slowly in the hot summer day. After we asked in everywhere we've been and haven't been and looked everywhere - even on the pirate fortress - it was obvious that we are in fact royally screwed.
We looked for the keys two more times, went to the police station. There was a suprising amount of found keys, but not the sheep keychain kind. :(
There's not much one can do without car keys in a foreign country. Even the friendly police officer was not sure what to do.
Our options were basically:
- you can hope and look for the keys some more
- you can break in (it is surprisingly easy to find someone who can do that), but the car will remain unlocked and stationary
- sem-legally get a new key and hope it can start the car
- go to your car dealership about 30 km away and hope for magic
Oh yeah ... it's also the weekend! Fun!
Day two of the roadtrip to the seaside and we haven't even been to the beach yet! We had to return the rafting ticket we bought just hours before, too.
Day two was going even less according to plan than day one. Achievement unlocked?
After about 3 or 4 hours we gave up and hitched a ride back to the village. There was nothing else we could do here. Luckily, hitchin' a ride is fairly easy around here - many young people do it to get to the beach.
Once back at the village we asked our awesome neighbours for help. Got a few phone noumbers, made some calls and then ... waited.
The next morning, still no keys at the police station. The car dealership wasn't answering the phone either. Saturday. :( Many angry/worried calls from mom.
All in all a shitty day.
Saturday evening came and the neighbours returned from town with some promising news! There were keys similar to ours in the little parking lot hut!
Today we had a nervous car ride to Omiš. We really do have great neighbours.
It was our car keys! Hooray! Everything worked out (better than expected?). I love that little stuffed toy key chain sheepy!
... and let's just say I'll be carrying the keys from now on.
Continue reading about A roadtrip: wherein Swizec is not to be trusted with important objects without supervision
Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4
- A roadtrip: second leg
- 17. Maj
- A month on the road
- When the universe tries to communicate, or how I almost didn't get home
- A roadtrip: fin
Learned something new?
Read more Software Engineering Lessons from Production
I write articles with real insight into the career and skills of a modern software engineer. "Raw and honest from the heart!" as one reader described them. Fueled by lessons learned over 20 years of building production code for side-projects, small businesses, and hyper growth startups. Both successful and not.
Subscribe below 👇
Software Engineering Lessons from Production
Join Swizec's Newsletter and get insightful emails 💌 on mindsets, tactics, and technical skills for your career. Real lessons from building production software. No bullshit.
"Man, love your simple writing! Yours is the only newsletter I open and only blog that I give a fuck to read & scroll till the end. And wow always take away lessons with me. Inspiring! And very relatable. 👌"
Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.
Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help 👉 swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.
Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers 👉 ServerlessHandbook.dev
Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization
Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections
Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog
Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️