Car twins are everywhere

There are more than 283 million cars in use in the United States. Inside that gigantic number are more than 60 car makers and 1,200 different models. But only about 10 paint colors are used, and more than 70 percent of all those cars are black, white, gray, or silver.

What do all these numbers mean? Great question. It’s not something a humble writer allergic to math can answer. I can spell “statistical probability,” but that’s about it. But I know from experience that there’s a near certainty that most of us will have a close encounter with our car’s identical twin. It’s just a matter of when and how.

My first “when” happened over a decade ago in an elementary school parking lot. I’d just attended a school assembly, and a flock of parents streamed outside after it ended. With a baby on one hip and a toddler by the hand, I fished a key fob out of my diaper bag and pointed it at my light blue Honda minivan as we walked toward it. We bought the minivan because it had automatic sliding doors — a “must have” feature for a mom shuttling around little humans and big bags of groceries. But on that particular day, the doors didn’t open.

So I pushed it again. The baby was starting to fuss, the toddler needed to pee, and I was losing patience with the dysfunctional door clicker. I blew out a frustrated breath and tried one last time, and the door finally slid open. I stepped forward to load the kids, diaper bag and purse into the van, but something stopped me. I stood there staring at things that didn’t make sense. The three car seats were there, but they had far fewer crumbs of Goldfish crackers in them. There weren’t any month-old french fry fossils on the floor. It was too clean.

That’s when I heard a man’s voice right behind me. I spun around to see him standing there, holding his own toddler by the hand. In his other hand was a Honda minivan keyfob that looked just like mine.

Him: (Nodding toward the van) “This one is mine.”

Me: “What?”

Him: (Pointing) “I think yours is over there.”

It took me a few seconds to realize that my door clicker had not opened the minivan door because this was, in fact, not my van. It turned out that the man behind me was not only a fellow parent but also a local police officer. (He’d probably been witnessing people doing dumb things like this for years.) Thankfully, he understood this was less of a “breaking and entering” and more of a “right time, wrong minivan” situation.

Speaking of accidental crime, my favorite car twin story happened about a year ago in the parking lot of a deli. I’d just finished lunch with my mom and teenage daughter, but I wanted to get a refill of sweet tea before we left. Mom said she’d meet me in the car and walked out.

When my mom climbed into the car and buckled up, she spotted my open purse on the center console. She’d wanted to pay for our lunch, but I wouldn’t let her. So she glanced back toward the restaurant to see if the coast was clear. Then she quickly took a twenty dollar bill out of her own wallet and slipped it into the purse gaping open next to her. She silently congratulated herself on a clever way of paying for lunch without persuading me to accept her money.

Then she heard a loud tap on the window and jerked her hand out of the purse. She looked up to see her teenage granddaughter standing next to the car.

Kate: “Memaw, you’re in the wrong car.”

Mom: “What?”

Kate (pointing): “Ours is over there. See?”

Mortified, Mom quickly unbuckled, threw open the door, and scrambled out of the seat. Then she reached over and retrieved the twenty-dollar bill she’d just put into a purse that definitely wasn’t mine. She glanced around the parking lot, praying that the real owners weren’t nearby because not only had she gotten into their car, it also looked like she was stealing money on her way out.

As luck would have it, the rightful owners were still eating, so we escaped without anyone knowing about the money she’d given and then taken back in only a few minutes. It was quite the caper for an 80-year-old, law-abiding Memaw.

The moral of these stories? Lock your doors. Hide your purses. Remember where you parked. And consider giving your car’s door handle a distinctive tattoo. Statistical probability is tricky, and car twins are everywhere.

Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated columnist. Email her at gwenrockwood5@gmail.com. Her book is available on Amazon.