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My exciting morning began when my car key snapped off in the lock. I was in the Whole Foods parking lot at the time, having just bought my lunch, ready to get to work.

The real problem was that I hadn't wanted to lug my big heavy computer bag into the store. So I had taken my credit card with me, and locked everything else in the car. Phone. Wallet. AAA membership card. All locked in the car.

Whole Foods has a courtesy phone so I called work, then called Georg for the AAA information. Unfortunately he didn't have his card either. Then I called the nearby Mazda dealership, to ask if they could make me a new key. They could, they said, but they needed to see my registration card to prove that I own the car before they would make me a key. Okay, that's fair, but that meant I needed to get inside my car. And did they have the number for AAA? No, they did not. They did have the number of a local tow company which works with AAA, and might have the 800 number on hand. I called them, and it must have been a really small company because I woke up some poor woman by the sound of it.

The sleepy woman at the tow company had no idea what I was talking about, and while I tried to explain -- again -- that I needed the number of AAA because I had locked my membership card inside my car, a kind Whole Foods customer took pity on me and lent me her AAA card so I could write down the phone number.

Once I had the AAA phone number it was smooth sailing. They looked up my membership number from my name and address, and called it in to unlock the car and tow me to the Mazda dealership. The tow guy got there in 20 minutes. He was the awesomest of awesome. He arrived in a car, not a tow truck, and told me that they were backed up and it would have been a couple of hours before the tow truck could get to me. So he had come over in his car to see if he could fix it without the tow. I think he must have been the manager or owner, not one of the tow guys.

He got my car open, called the Mazda dealership for me (he said he knew them), gave them my VIN number over the phone, and then drove me over there. I had gotten Millenium Mazda (out by South Square) confused with Performance Subaru (right down the road), and said I could walk, but he insisted on driving me out there. And was I ever relieved about that when we sailed past Performance and I realized my mistake.

To my amazement, the key was ready when we got there. All they needed was the VIN number! They have a computer which tells them how to make a key for any Mazda. The tow guy told me that older cars aren't in the computer, and I was lucky because mine (a 1991) is near the edge of being too old. I always think of my car as being pretty new, probably because my prevous car was a 1978 Corolla. I guess a 1991 model is now 17 years old, which is pretty old for a car, at least the way most people see it.

The Mazda people gave me 2 keys, and they didn't even charge me! Amazing. I just had to sign something and then we were done. The tow guy drove me back and waited while I checked to make sure the new keys worked. He said it could be a problem, especially for "old cars" like mine, but UMJ started right up. It is a bit sticky in the lock, which is less important because I rarely lock the car. And the tow guy told me some WD40 would take care of that.

And that was it! What seemed like it was going to be a nightmare ordeal ended up being resolved in a little over an hour. I got lucky several times: first, the broken key did not get stuck in the lock. Whew. Then the dealership was able to make me a key from their computer. And finally, the new key worked. WHEW!