I have walked up to a car identical to mine and stuck the key in the door and unlocked it before I realized it was not mine.Dragonfighter wrote:We had a red Ford Ranger, the first and only new car I've owned. There was another one locally with identical paint job and configuration with similar plates ( a couple of characters off). The only real difference was a red interior where ours was grey. When my wife got rear ended, so did they and the bumpers were affected the identical way. When we got it repaired, so did they, with the same bumper. We put a ball hitch on...so did they. We got a bed cover and they had gotten the same one. When the Velcro failed, we rolled it up and left it, it sagged in the middle of the roll; you guessed it, so did theirs. We got a capper and they got an identical one.
We periodically passed one another and looked in bewilderment as we passed. Though they weren't dead ringers, they were similar age and build. There were two different occasions where I came out of the store and was wondering why my key didn't work only then noticing I was trying to enter the one with the red interior parked a couple of spaces or one row over from mine. One time I came out and saw a lady circling my truck a couple of times, throw her hands up and then walked to another section of the lot...I think it was "her". We never officially met but when I finally sold mine 6 years and 300K later, I never saw theirs again.
This little trip into the twilight zone is to illustrate why I am sympathetic with the guy that hopped into your car. But I would have drawn also. My wife is in the habit of locking the doors if she is waiting for me though and only unlocks when I am at the vehicle's side.
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In 1966 I bought a Ford Custom 500 - fleet grey, blackwall tires, red interior. Being a volunteer fireman I put a blue light on the roof and my dress hat on the back shelf.
A couple of months later my parents sat me down for a family conference. They started talking about how they realized that Phyllis was an attractive woman but Gary was a friend if not a fellow fireman and so on.
Gary had bought the same exact car, with the same exact blue light on the roof (we WERE in the same fire department and that was the "approved model.") and a parade hat in the back window.
My parents had observed my car parked in front of Gary's house several times when I was supposed to be at school or work.
Phyllis was very attractive, but it was Gary's car, not mine.