My last couple of estate cars have had electrically operated tailgates and load covers. Who thought that was a useful or desirable feature is beyond me, but that's how they are.
Anyway, one day, while hundreds of miles from home, with only the one key, and in pouring rain, I had to return to the car to retreive a large, heavy cardboard box from the boot.
Plipped the boot open with the button on the key fob and leaned in to get the box. It was further in than was useful, and very heavy. So of course I put the keys on the boot floor to free up both hands to wrestle the box out of the boot. Having successfully achieved that, I got one finger on to the boot closing button on the tailgate which started to make its way down.
At that point, I realised that I'd left the keys on the boot floor, and that if it got fully shut, the car would lock itself again.
So, without having the gumption to drop the box, I dived under the now nearly closed tailgate, coming to rest face down on the boot floor with the heavy box having made its way onto the back of my head and across my shoulders. The tailgate meanwhile, had trapped my legs at about knee height and was repeatedly trying to chop them off.
The load cover decided to join in by trapping the box across my shoulders.
All of this while parked on a meter bay in central London.
I was by now a bit fed up with the whole scenario but more or less unable to move. It was pretty dark in there and all I could think to do was to find the keys to release the tailgate.
It is not easy to find keys in such circumstances.
Time passed, and I'm sure it at least puzzled some passers by, but being in London, no one offered to help. Eventually, I got the giggles which attracted the attention of a gentleman who also started laughing, but in time I managed, albeit muffled by the box, the load cover and my now crazed state of mind, to explain to him where the tailgate release button was.
My lower legs were by now soaking, my meter was running out and I had no more change.
It all mentally scarred me for a while.
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