Happens to the Best of us

The premise

It had been snowing like crazy since last afternoon and since me and Waman[my colleague and room partner] came from office yesterday at around 12:30 pm we had stayed inside till 4PM on the fateful Saturday afternoon[20th-Dec-2008].

We had to go out and start and run Waman's car[Hyundai Ascent our RIDE] for sometime to keep it in good running state otherwise it wont start in the morning while we go to office on Monday.So at around 3:45 PM after having our late lunch we were just chatting around watching Ristay [Waman's favorite TV show] and I said lets go and check out the car.So we got our winter cloths[jacket,gloves]on, put on our shoes and went out.We missed a few very very important things as we were cruelly reminded later.

Is this our car?
We got to the place where we had parked our car yesterday and were surprised to see it completely covered with snow.There was this cute little Chinese girl cleaning her car , she said "Hi" we also returned the greetings.We also started to clear off the huge layer of snow that had accumulated over the last night. After we got the car relatively free of snow Waman got into the car to start it and I was filming him do this with my digi cam never knowing that things would go so terribly wrong.
As you can see in the video Waman made the big mistake !! closed the door with the keys[INCLUDING the keys to our house] inside.So here we were few seconds back enjoying the snow ,happy and now we were all screwed up. Freezing in the -15C temp,snowing non-stop, no home,no car, no cell phone and no people around.Remember the things I told about we missed to take while going out yes now it was all coming back to haunt us , Oops! I forgot to take my wallet that had my key for the house, Waman forgot to take his cell phone.

Panic Strikes
Now we were stranded outside. Waman went to that Chinese chick to ask for help but as expected she had no clue what to do.Suddenly we remembered there was a auto-parts store called Midas just round the corner thinking they may have something or may be someone from them can help us get the car open; started running towards that store. As I was running my nose and cheeks lost all sensation and my fingers and feet also started to freeze. But to our horror they were closed "who will remain open in such worst weather"!!!.
Disappointed and hopeless we made our way back to thecar which was still running.We had no clue what to do and then we saw a man doing something in front of 47A[btw we stay at 47D]. So I told Waman lets go and ask him for help, we had to call 911 or AAA[Auto Insurance Company]. Waman went to him and explained our situation.

The Angel called Earl
The persons name was Earl he offered us help by giving us his phone to call as fortunately he also had a AAA membership so he had their number too. Waman called AAA and told them about our misery and as he told them that we were locked outside our home in freezing cold the lady said she will put our request in priority but this may still take up to 2 hours as they had lot of issues and were backed up due to the weather.

I said shit! what will we do till 2 hours? Earl offered us to come inside his house and wait for them.We first said "no we don't want to disturb you guys" but both us knew we needed to go inside if wanted to live to see another day.

The long wait.
We went inside; met his wife who was sitting besides a nicely decorated Christmas tree ,playing some game on her Wii.After our ordeal in the freezing snow for about half an hour we were now inside his warm,cozy home sitting on a comfortable sofa.
Waman started a conversation asking where were they from? which led to a series of casual discussions about a myriad of topics.Just to make us feel better Earl's wife told how her father once did a similar thing and that it "happens to the best of us" and that "you will laugh about this someday".It did not seem funny at that time but as I think of it now now I can see what she was saying. Me and Waman keep on laughing when ever we see the above video. All along Waman had kept an eye out of the window to spot the AAA guys.After almost 50 mins of wait finally a guy showed up in a truck.

Both me and Waman scampered out thanking Earl on the way for his help and with in no time the guy opened the car door and we got the keys for which we had suffered so much this day.

After the formalities with the AAA person got completed both me and Waman went back to Earls house again and thanked him again and finally returned to the safety of our house.

Moral of the story "Never lock yourself out of your car and house on snowy winter day".
Easier said than done, right?