The Warning Beep from Lightning’s Girl

Last week, while out on a photo trip, I stopped by a roadside pumpkin patch and purchased some pumpkins. One for me, one for my girlfriend, one for my girlfriend’s mother. Because I’m that kind of guy.

I put the pumpkins in the back trunk of my 2017 Chevrolet Volt Premier (“Lightning’s Girl”), and drove home.

Here’s a photo of the pumpkins. Ain’t they nice?

Yeah, I kinda have this thing for the warty, knobby pumpkins. And that one yellow pumpkin looks kinda festive for the season.

During the week, I took the orange-green pumpkin to my day job, where it now sits at the reception desk. So that left me with two pumpkins.

Yesterday, I put both pumpkins in my car, with the plan to head over to Nicole’s house and help her plant some blooming mums along her walkway. It’s a nice morning, I’m feeling like I have plenty of energy, all is right with the world.

Then I hear a beep. A very, very concerning beep. A beep coming from inside my car.

Shit. Okay, Chuck, let’s not panic.

I quickly scan the dashboard. No check engine light. Whew. Last thing I need just before Holiday Train chasing season.

I check my tire pressures. All of them are at 34-35 PSI, no issues there.

The beeping continued. It’s not a beeping I recognize. What could this be?

After a few, agonizing moments, I glanced up at the rearview mirror – and I saw the answer.

Someone’s not wearing their seat belt.

But that’s not possible. I wear my seat belt every time I get in a car. Every time. I wear it if I’m sitting in the back seat. I wear it if I’m in an Uber. If you look at the rearview mirror in the photo, you can kinda see I’m wearing it when I took this photo.

And it was only then that I realized …

I was wearing a seat belt …

But look who wasn’t.

That’s right. Because I had things in my trunk already, I put the two pumpkins in the front seat. And apparently my Chevrolet is so sensitive, it thought that the weight of two pumpkins equaled the weight of two butt cheeks.

Yes, after I dropped off the orange warty pumpkin to Nicole’s mother, the annoying seat belt snitch sound stopped. Whew.

Look, I get it. Lightning’s Girl is the best car ever. It protects me, it delivers me, it’s my forever car.

But the last thing I need in my life is my car mistaking two pumpkins for an unbuckled passenger.

Then again … maybe I should have buckled the pumpkins in place. You never know.

One bad collision and it would look like Sleepy Hollow all over my dash. 🙂