In the Honda offices many years ago

Honda executive type person one: Alright Honda executive type people, we need some new ideas, our cars are pretty good, but we’re Japanese, ‘pretty’ is for schoolgirls with really short skirts and really high socks, we need innovation damn it! Who has an idea?’

Honda executive type person two: Well we could make our cars drive better, look cooler, be more efficient, be cheaper, have better speaker systems, give free glow in the dark temporary tattoos, be more crash resistant, include extra sized roof racks, have a GPS system that tells you if a cop is near by, smell like movie popcorn, have more comfortable seats, clean themselves in the rain, or create a new font for our emblem ‘H’?

Honda executive type person one: I like them all! Who else has an idea?

Honda executive type person three: Oooh Ooooh, or we could have our emblem no longer be a capital ‘H’ but a lower case ‘h’?

Honda executive type person one: I LOVE it; especially how you pronounced those letters ‘atch’, instead of that horribly annoying ‘hatch’! Anyone else got an idea?

Honda executive type person four: I have an idea, we could create a key to give to all owners of Hondas, the key itself would look identical to the normal car key, with, and excuse the technical talk, the same groove and bumpy bits, and would open the car doors, but when you put it in the ignition it would not just fail to start the car but make it so all other official keys for that car also no longer work.

Honda executive type person one: Interesting, so if a person who owned this Honda accidently used this key what would happen?

Honda executive type person four: Well they would be unable to start their car’s engine, even as the owners of the car, and even if in possession of one of the keys that we gave with the car that up until moments earlier worked fine, and regardless of where the car is, be it remote, in an unsafe area, or a danger to other drivers - the variety of places where this could take place that would be of enormous determent to the driver are pretty much endless.

Honda executive type person one: So they would be the owners of the car, not a criminal or anything, and they would have accidently rendered their own keys useless?

Honda executive type person four: Yes! But more than that, we could give this key to the owner of the car upon purchase, make it look EXACTLY like their normal key, except make it red and pretty and enticing, and then have them keep it packaging that in no ways mentions that it will essentially turn their car into, and excuse the technical talk, a big shitty paper weight, make no mention of what this key does on our official websites, not inform sales staff at Honda dealers what this red key means so that when people get stranded and call up for advice they will receive none, not give any details on our websites on what to do if you accidently use this key, leaving it up to message board speculation onto the possible hundreds of things that the car owner may have done to their car, and make them fear possibilities such as having to have the car towed to the nearest Honda Service Center, no matter how far that may be, possibly half a continent away in some cases, and let them believe that the entire electronic programming of their car may have to be re-programmed or replaced potentially costing them thousands of dollars, but also making sure they would have no way of finding this information out unless their red key ceased their ability to turn on their own car engines during Service hours, meaning that if they attempted to use this red key in a more dangerous, or inconvenient time their burden would only increase drastically!

Honda executive type person one: Wow, so it would be like a key that looks totally innocent, and more than that, totally useful, and we’d give it to people who bought hugely expensive machinery off us, only for one day to discover that for no reason at all we have given these customers of ours a piece of equipment that may totally fuck their day, if not lead to far worse?

Honda executive type person four: Exactly!

Honda executive type person one: Well I can certainly see many, many, many, many downsides to providing this key to our customers, but I just can’t think of a single situation where a person who spends tens of thousands of dollars on a car may want to render their own car useless, requiring possibly great hassle and potentially great expense to rectify, and then only if fortunately they accidently use this key somewhere they can get reasonably easy access to one of our sporadic service centers, that is if, they can find a Honda staff member who can even help them with this situation, which as you have pointed out we would make sure is never the case, so I guess I must ask, is there a single positive aspect to this red key?

 Honda executive type person four: Well I have given this a lot of thought, and I did come up with a scenario that may make this red key a positive thing – say for example you are driving your Honda and a man with a gun approaches you wishing to steal your car, and say in the unlikely event that on this day you were for some unknown reason carrying around this potentially hugely dangerous red key with you, and say the man with the gun looked away for long enough for you to take your normal key out of the ignition and replace it with the red key, and say the man with the gun had also told you to turn off the engine so he could turn it on himself, because he values the joy of turning keys more than a fast get away, well if all those things all took place at once, and then also some reason came up where you would like to have this man with a gun stay next to you for longer, but also be extremely angry with you, and know that you had just fucked with him, like say for example you WANTED him, and excuse the technical talk, to shoot you in the fucking face, well then I guess you could use the red key and get a result that would be positive for you at least. Other than that this red key can only lead to expense, hassle, and possible danger for someone who bought a car from us.

Honda executive type person one: Just to be sure I am getting you right

-       It would often lead to fucking over our customers

-       Unless our customers wanted to be shot in the fucking face?

Honda executive type person four: Yes, and let’s face it, if you want to be shot in the face you’ll probably choose a Toyota, am I right?

Honda executive type person one: Ha ha! Awesome. You are right. Idiot Toyota drivers.

Honda executive type person four: So?

Honda executive type person one: All I can say is wow, that is possibly the dumbest idea that has ever been pitched, or even thought about, by any human ever. I demand all Honda’s be sold with this red key at once! Honda executive type person two and three, you’re fired! You stupid idiots, besides – glow in the dark temporary tattoos? If you get a glow in the dark tattoo of course you’ll want it permanent you tool!

And on that day Hondas did start giving all owners one of these red keys. And today, for the first time in six months I decided to try and drive my mom’s old Honda, and wondered which of all the weird keys I have lying around actually worked, and that’s why my mom’s old car is parked a long way a way from me, with an engine that won’t turn on and no idea how to fix it, and excuse the technical talk, but fuck you Honda, I like those short skirts and high socks!