Last night I got a call from my wife asking me to pick up my mother-in-law from work. My father-in-law was to have driven her home but was an hour late and no one could find him. Upon arriving at their house we discovered the problem. Apparently there had been an accident in the area that had knocked out the power and phone lines. With no phone, he couldn't make or receive calls.

Now here is the best part. The reason dad-in-law couldn't go anywhere was that the landlord had installed an electric garage door opener a few months ago. When the power went out, the opener obviously wouldn't work. And, since the roll up door is the only access to the garage, there was no way to pull the release rope and rescue the car locked inside. Needless to say, he is working on a back up system to release the rope!