A Georgia woman has gone viral after a TikTok video with more than 13 million views appeared to show her pressuring a locksmith to hurry while unlocking her car at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The clip, which has also amassed more than 1.1 million likes and over 5,000 comments, captured the woman worrying about missing her flight after accidentally locking her keys inside her vehicle.
The video was shared by Atlanta-based locksmith @thekeygoat (also known as Allen), who regularly documents roadside lockouts, customer interactions, and other behind-the-scenes moments from the job. One of his latest videos has gone viral and it’s easy to see why. In it, the lockout specialist has to deal with a rather impatient woman who has locked herself out of her vehicle at the airport.
After opening with a brief teaser of the tense exchange, the video cuts to the locksmith driving to the airport while speaking with the woman over the phone. “Okay, if you’re not here in five minutes, I’m calling someone else. I’m not gonna wait for you here forever,” the woman says through the vehicle’s audio system. Remaining calm, Allen simply replies, “Okay, yeah. Thank you.” The woman then adds impatiently, “You have to hurry up, because I have a flight.”
Upon arriving at the airport, Allen introduces himself, though the woman refuses to shake his hand and instead states, “I don’t have time for this. My flight is leaving. I need you to unlock the car.” After attempting to calm her down, the pair agree on a price of $150 for the service. However, the woman continues to pester the locksmith as he tries to do his job.
As the situation escalates, the locksmith finally fires back, “I swear, if you say one more word, you’re not gonna make it to your flight. You’re not gonna make it to Christmas. Calm down. Let me do my work.” However, the woman continues to badger him as he attempts to unlock the car, leading the locksmith to threaten, “Every word you say from now on is $20 more.”
The thing is, the woman doesn’t let up and continues urging the locksmith to hurry. He turns to her and says, “$180. $190. Stop it. Stop it now. $200. $220. $250.” Throughout the exchange, the woman insists he will be the reason she misses her flight and even threatens that he will have to pay for a new ticket. Thankfully, he finally gets the door open, which triggers the car alarm.
Moments later, the woman is seen counting out cash as she hurriedly pays Allen for unlocking her car. Although he repeatedly threatened to increase the price during the exchange, the locksmith ultimately sticks to the original agreed-upon fee of $150. He even offers to help her retrieve her belongings from the vehicle. As the encounter comes to an end, Allen tells the woman, “Have a safe flight, miss,” though she appears to respond with only a sideways glance before walking away.
The encounter quickly made its way to Reddit, where viewers overwhelmingly sided with the locksmith.
Viewers Side With the Locksmith
Many viewers argued that the woman was ultimately responsible for her own predicament, not the locksmith. One Reddit user joked, “At check in I am sorry madam, but your flight was yesterday,” while another wrote, “I’d have walked away. He didnt make you miss a flight, you did that to yourself.”
Others sympathized with the locksmith, saying dealing with impatient customers can make an already stressful job even more difficult. “These people drive me nuts man… I worked too damn hard to get my brain to stop freaking out like that to have someone else do it in my ear,” one commenter wrote.
Over on TikTok, several viewers felt the locksmith had shown more patience than they would have had. “If she was being that rude, I would’ve just left to be honest,” one person commented, while another felt he should have followed through on his warning, writing, “defo shouldve charged the 250.”
Whether viewers saw the locksmith’s price increases as serious or simply a way to keep the situation under control, most agreed on one thing: staying calm in a stressful situation is often easier said than done.
