Is Locking Yourself in a 2020 Prius Prime Ever the Right Choice?
No, but I’m almost glad I did.
Eva B.
There I was, shoeless on a bus to Downtown Minneapolis. I wish I didn't know how I got there, but I did, and the only one to blame was myself.
The plan was simple: pick up my stuff from a friend’s, drop it at the new place, and get settled. But a text from my boss, a harsh reminder that I was now late for an apparent shift, changed everything. My new roommate let me in and I begrudgingly huffed to work.
At midnight, when I returned, the lone car was a jarring reminder that I had not locked it. I kicked off my shoes in the house, not knowing my roommate would head back to Wisconsin just five minutes later, locking me out of my new home as I tore through the yard trying to find the car keys.
Three options presented themselves:
Knock on the door of everyone's apartment at 12AM, asking them kindly if they had stolen the keys!
Yeah, nope.
Sleep at a friend’s and hope the car will stay put
Really was not in the mood to get a car stolen.
Tow the car, sleep at a friend’s house and just accept the towing fee
No thanks, I’m broke
Lock yourself in the car and wait until your roommates return in the morning to figure out what to do.
At least I’ll go down with the ship.
And so my night began, curled up in the back seat of a 2020 Prius Prime. My pillow was an old paper towel roll, and my blanket was a mysteriously small seat cover I found in the trunk. I set alarms on my phone every hour, a desperate attempt to convince myself I was in control.
My first alarm went off at 2:00 AM. I was delighted to find myself still in the parking lot. The keys, according to my phone’s tracker, were in the same place they had been all night—too far to reach, but not moving from the apartment next to me.
The next woke me at 2:45 AM, bringing with it a bright reminder that my phone had only 10% battery remaining. The tracker was my last hope. As the screen loaded, the blue circle leaped across the screen. Across the street! I flung myself out of the car, my neck sore in a place I didn't think it could be. Phone flashlight in hand, I raced toward that circle. The screen cut to black.
Defeated, I drifted shoeless, phoneless, sleepless. In the middle of the road, I threw my hands up in the air. For a few minutes I thought about all the people before me who had felt this way and thrown their arms up. Glad there’s solidarity for self-imposed stress.
I held the power button of my dead phone. It flickered on. Expecting it to turn off, I pretended not to care. I tapped the Find My app.
"16 feet." Something biologically primitive inside me launched me across the street. The arrow pointed directly at my new house. 14 feet. 12 feet. I bounded forward. 5 feet. Hugging the cold concrete wall of my new house, arms outstretched above my head, the phone vibrated for just a moment before the screen went unresponsive. But it was enough. Those keys, those damn keys, somehow were in my house. The whole damn time.
Back in the car, I reset my paper towel roll and cozied up in the back seat. Knowing my keys were, despite what my phone had been telling me all night, somehow in that locked house. I didn't question it. I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I was not going to be kidnapped in my own car. I sunk into the seats.
When I finally rose, I basked in the fresh late August morning air, experiencing the crispness of the world like I had for the first time. I had things to do. But first, shoes.
I took my phone and charger to the Dinkytown Target, where I guess they don't sell shoes anymore. God forbid. I wandered into Starbucks, pulling my pants down alarmingly low to cover my shoeless feet. I plugged my phone into the wall. I had shoes in my work locker downtown, and time to kill, so what the hell.
I paid my bus fare in cash, the old-fashioned way, using my pants to shield my feet from the grime on the floor. I was a bus person with others up at 6AM—a man in a wrinkly suit, the driver, a jogger-type, the girl my age who didn’t lift an eye. I didn’t care how I looked at that moment. I held onto the special honor it is to live life in the way that I can. I have stories to tell. And yes, it usually does more harm than good, but a story is a story. I’d rather live while I can, or at least, that’s how I’m justifying my descent into madness in the backseat of a Prius Prime.