Victory over the center console black hole!!!

I somehow managed to get the key fob from my 2015 Sienna stuck in the center console "black hole" of my 2026 Sienna!! The horror!!

Apparently the fob migrated over there and down into the abyss while the console cover was closed. How could that happen? Well, the fob had been sitting in the cool little drop in organizer tray I had inserted into the console. Apparently, while the cover was closed, it just bounced sideways and then into the dreaded black hole, presumably while I was doing some Mario Andretti cornering in Sport Mode.

A 2015 fob is a thick little bugger. With the console door open (but not all the way, because of course now the fob prevented that....), I used a full-on small crowbar thing to bend the interior plastic back toward the middle of the console to expose the fob. Unlike my dignity and integrity, that plastic was capable of bending QUITE A BIT without breaking!! I then fashioned a little hook out of the end of a straightened coat hanger and managed to get that into the key ring portion of the fob, and then pulled it from the depths of center console hell. I was just barely able to drag it out, all while putting a truly alarming amount of whammy on both the crowbar and a screwdriver inserted into the same mouth of hell on the other side of the fob. "The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life," as the Duke of Wellington would have said.

Many thanks to the Sienna Chat guy a few years ago who discovered that the secret to conquering the black hole is the incredible strength of that plastic.

I am elated. Triumphant. I now feel like nothing is impossible.