oops (x4)

Yesterday I had a moment of panic.  You know that sinking feeling you get upon realization that you’ve locked your keys in the car?  It was like that, only a little worse. Like that because the keys were, in fact, locked in the car.  A little worse because not only were the keys locked in the car, so were my children, and there’s no spare key.  Really awesome scenario, eh? Add to it that little 5 week old Gavin was 25 minutes passed the time he would typically eat.  I had been expecting a “starving baby meltdown” the entire duration I was at the store.  Relieved to have avoided a public vocal reprimand by my son, I put him in the car, planning to rush home and hope to beat the meltdown.  With the key disaster at hand, I was definitely sure it was going to get ugly. 

Thankfully, nothing got ugly and a cab company was prompt to respond and rescue us.  Gavin, uncharacteristically, squirmed around in his carseat and fell asleep, while Molli thought it was hilarious that she and Gavin were in the car and I was looking at them through the windows.  So, naturally, she took off her shoes and dumped her water all over her legs, sprinkling her crushed up snack on top- some of her favorite car activities. 

A few minutes and $25 dollars later, we left the parking lot.  It was definitely one of my more uneventful keys-locked-in-car experiences.  Would you like to hear about some of my other idiotic experiences of this nature?

The following experiences occurred while I was working as a child and adolescent outreach therapist in a town 45 minutes from where I lived at the time.  This job required me to travel all over the fricken place, mostly to schools and client’s homes. 

1.) I was fairly new at work and was feeling pretty good about having four solid sessions with clients at one particular school.  I went to leave, couldn’t find the keys in my coat pocket, backtracked through the school and eventually walked back out to the car (company car #1) with impending dread and realized that, of course, the doors were locked (because I’m responsible), the keys were in my purse and my purse was in the car (because I’m actually not responsible).  <insert sinking feeling here>

I went back inside and realized along with the keys, my phone was also in my purse. I asked to use the school secretary’s phone, called the office to talk with, Rose, my boss (who had the spare set).  She was out so I got her cell number.  Unfortunately, it was long-distance so I had to get the school secretary to help me.  She instructed me to dial “9 and 1” to get an outside line.  She must have taken me for a fool or something because I did as she instructed, then proceeded to dial the cell number, beginning with “1” and before I could even finish dialing, three people ran into the office, full speed and freaking out.  Apparently I dialed 911 and the cops and fire trucks were on their way.  Mortified by my idiot self, I hung up and slunk out of the office, with sirens in the distance.  Don’t worry, I had to face my fault.  “Conveniently,” the cops arrived and were able to unlock my car door.  

2.) It was winter and I had just gotten over a pretty solid seasonal cold.  Apparently I had shared the cold with everyone in the outreach program and I was the only one back at work, besides the intern, Christina, who became a very good friend.  I met with a client at his school, then had 15 minutes before my next appointment.  I had to use the bathroom but was definitely not going to go at my next client’s house, for sanitary reasons.  I stopped at a cycle shop to go, quickly.  I finished up a phone call in the parking lot, got out, and in one graceful motion, slammed the door and immediately placed my face up to the window.  Yep, keys in the ignition of company car #2 still.  Crapola!  At least this time I knew the police were capable to getting locked doors open.  No problem, I figured I’d go to the bathroom, call them and be at my next appointment just a few minutes late… no one at work would even have to know. Ideally that would have been the case. I don’t do “ideal” very well. 

I only had to freeze my butt off for a few minutes before the police did arrived.  I’m not sure if it was just bad luck or if I deserved it, but this officer was not able to pry the door open enough to move the lock.  “No problem,” he said.  He got a slim jim out of his vehicle and shoved it down into the depths of the car door and jiggled it around for a while.  By now, I’m super cold, and also late. He pretended to be my hero for a while, then informed me that his slim jim was stuck and if I could please return it to him if I could get it out, he’d “really appreciate it.”  He left and I was still locked out, now with a ghetto piece of thin metal jammed in and sticking out of the window.  I called Christina, she got the spare and came to rescue me.  She and I tried to pry the darn thing loose, but in the end we contacted the guy who did maintenance things and I had to fill out an incident report.  He wound up taking the entire door apart to set the slim jim free.  I still have it and consider it a gift for future trouble.

3.)  Future trouble came soon, but this time was fairly simple.  (Too bad the slim jim was locked IN my car, with my keys.)  I stopped by Target to buy a journal for my next client and had the classic “oopsies, I locked the keys in the car” moment.  I had the non-emergency number saved in my phone by then.  I used it, and was saved pretty quickly.  That’s how it should work.

*In my defense, the remote start/lock thing has been having issues lately and locked the car itself at no fault of my own during this most recent incident when the kids were in the car.*