Puzzler

[wolf]

Fear not. There will be no stories about islanders who always lie and their truth-telling mortal enemies, nor does a clever conundrum hang on an obscure definition of a word.

It's like this ...

Tonight I went out to a Chinese Restaurant to purchase my New Year's Feast.

When I left the house and got in the car, the key fob remote worked perfectly. Car unlocked, I got in and drove to the strip mall.

The Chinese place is on end of the side of the shopping center. It's neighbors are a videogame store, a mortage brokerage, a jeweler, and the inevitable Starbucks. Business was brisk at the Chinese restaurant, so I parked in front of the mortgage office, two doors down. I do not know if this is relevant.

I disembarked from the vehicle and pointed my keyfob in the general direction of the car, as is my usual practice. I hit the "lock" button twice and ... nothing. The locks did not lock. The horn did not give me a cheery, confirmatory beep.

"That's odd," I thought. "Usually the remote gives me warning by not working at long distances from the car. Oh well."

I rummaged around in my pockets and found my spare key, which I've been too lazy to return to the spare key drawer, and just keep stuffing back into my pocket.

Point and a click later ... nothing happens. It was like waving the rod with the rusty star on the end when you were anywhere other than the misty chasm.

I ended up using the keypad on the car to lock the doors. On leaving the restaurant, I tried yet again. I'm nothing if not persistant. Doors would not lock or unlock with the remote. There was nothing else wrong with the car. Ran fine, no idiot lights on the dash.

I get home with the food, and expecting the same response, tried the remotes again.

Both of them worked.

WTF?

Any thoughts?