My husband took my youngest to ride rides at Carowinds for a few hours. Said they'd be home by 1. At 11 or so, he called and said his keys had fallen out of his pocket on a ride and they couldn't sweep looking for lost things till they closed. I'd need to find his extra key and bring it down and there was no guarantee that it would work anyway (he's had a hard time with his spare key before).
So I went into his drawer and grabbed the Volvo key that I saw along with mine and my eldest's Carowinds passes (so I could get in without paying to park) and left. It's about 30 minutes to there. On the way down, there was a torrential downpour and I almost hydroplaned on the interstate.
I got to Carowinds and handed the attendant my son's gold season pass (gold pays for your parking; mine is silver because I hardly ever go). The guy scanned the card and looked in the car and said, "Is he with you?" And I said, "No," (clearly he wasn't), "But here's what happened. My husband lost his keys on the Borg and I just came down here to give him another key. Here's my pass, the one you have is my son's. Trust me, I had no intention of coming to Carowinds today and I'm not trying to pull anything over on you. I just want to find my husband's car in the parking lot." The guy said, "I want to help you, so you can pull out here, turn left and park in guest parking. You'll then need to cross the pedestrian bridge and give the key to the worker over there." As if. So I paid $10 to park and pointed out that with all the money we've given them over the years, they should be thanking me and not making me pay when I'm not going into a park that I don't want to be at and really don't even care for. He gave me my receipt and said brightly, "Have a great day."
I went down every aisle of the parking lot and finally found his car. I parked my own a few down (people were leaving because of the rain), got out with the key and went to open it. It didn't work. That's when I got a little nervous and walked over to my own car and pushed the button and it instantly unlocked the door to MY Volvo. Uh. Oops. With a feeling of doom, I walked to the gate to look for the two of them, debating whether I should try and go all the way in or not.
I finally saw them coming out and was gearing up to confess my huge mistake when I realized that he had keys in his hand! Turns out that because of the rain, the only ride they closed was that one, which meant the attendants could do their sweep and found his keys and key fob (which had all imploded). We walked over to the cars, he tried it all out to be sure it worked.
I gave him my parking receipt so he could demand a refund from within at Guest Relations and then I left them to ride more rides in the rain.
Good times.
