Look, Henry, a FIRE TRUCK!

Man. Yesterday sucked. It sucked hard.

The day was already long and frustrating, as I made special arrangements to send Henry to childcare and busted my ass to get to campus in time for two meetings with students, to which neither of said students showed up (nor emailed, then or since). A job market related meeting in the afternoon reminded me just how ridiculously scared I am of that whole process, and halfway through the meeting the heavens opened up ominously. Rain and thunderstorms slowed traffic to a standstill so I was late to get Henry from childcare, which makes me completely crazy (I am way too attached to rules, punctuality). Henry’s nap at childcare had been wonky so he was off and cranky when I grabbed him, and heavy rain + highway driving + crying baby in the backseat made for a really shitty commute.

We were going to attend a little gathering at a friend’s house, the start time of which was just a little past when I would be hitting that side of town after picking Henry up, and I didn’t want to be early, so I decided to stop at the Whole Foods down the block from her place to grab Henry a snack of some kind, as the party was taking place during his dinner time.

It was pouring rain at this point so I just grabbed my wallet and Hank, leaving my bag in the car. We dashed into the store and Hank drank some milk and refused to eat any of the foodstuffs from the bakery/salad bar I’d spent a tidy fortune on. He played at a lego table in their lobby area for a few minutes and I decided it was close enough to the party start time to take ourselves over. All together we were there for ten minutes.

We dash out in the rain to the car, I strap Hank into his seat and give him a sippy cup of the purchased milk and a fruit/cereal bar thing that he’s thankfully interested in eating. He’s still being cranky, though, and in getting him situated he grabs my keys out of my hands. He starts messing with the buttons and engages the locks. The car does that “beep beep beep” thing to indicate a door is open. I grab for the keys and he angrily throws them over his head and into the front seat.

I finish getting him strapped and be-snacked and need to go around to the front seat to get my keys.

Here’s where everything goes horribly wrong. Out of habit/response to the pouring down rain/muscle memory/stupidity I CLOSE THE GODDAMNED PASSENGER DOOR before going around to the front to get my keys.

Locks engaged? Remember? Did I think that the “beep beep beep” meant that the locks WOULDN’T have been engaged? Because the Subaru magically knows that a 1 year old was doing the button pushing, or that we were in the car? I have no idea what I was thinking. That was the problem. I wasn’t thinking; I was on auto-pilot. Strap kid in, close door.

Of course Henry is now LOCKED IN THE FUCKING CAR.

WITH MY KEYS.

AND I AM OUTSIDE OF IT.

What else is in the car, apart from, and most importantly, and most shockingly and horrifyingly, Henry, and of course, my keys? My sweatshirt (I’m wearing a tshirt, in the heavy rain), my umbrella, MY PHONE.

I had to approach a stranger in the parking lot, in the rain, and ask her to stand, in the rain, next to my car, so I could run into the Whole Foods and ask for help. She had two small children with her, so they had to stand under the awning, watching her, watch Henry.

We only have the one car, so calling Baby Daddy to bring the spare keys wasn’t an option. That would take way too much time/cab rides/who knows what. Also, he was working on the line at that moment, so he wouldn’t pick up his phone anyway, if I had the Whole Foods customer service call him. Also, his restaurant has no phone. Business is conducted through the personal cell phones of Baby Daddy, the head bartender, and the owner. So not an option.

So! The fire department, in full regalia, had to come. Plus two squad cars. The massive fire engine blocked a gaggle of cars parked on either side of me, and people stood under the awning of the store gawking at me, soaked, standing next to the car, as the firemen broke in. Which took “only” about 20 minutes. The longest 20 minutes of my fucking life.

Okay, that’s not true. Henry was never really in danger. He never even cried. He just sat in his seat, drinking milk, eating his snack, and waving at the firemen on the other side of the window. The lights on the fire engine and squad car seemed to fascinate him, and I played peekaboo and such to distract him as best I could. Because I was pretty sure if he started to cry I would fall down dead.

Though he was happy and relatively safe, as it was happening, horror scenarios ran through my head. They had a lot of trouble, initially, figuring out how to break in. A newer-ish vehicle (2001) it not only has those AWESOME automatic locks but anti-theft weather stripping on the doors that makes it really hard to get any fancy-wire-hanger-like device in. They were really scratching their heads for the first ten minutes and I was sure they were going to have to break a window, and there was no iteration of that that wouldn’t put Henry at risk.

Also? I had given him a snack. Because his dinner was being fucked with for this party, I had, for the first time, allowed him to snack in the car (he’s still rear-facing, so we’ve been too afraid to let him eat anything). And what if he CHOKED on the cereal bar while the firemen were trying to get into the car? WHAT THEN?

</cautionary tale about eating in the car.>

Basically, though, I was having a panic attack because my baby was locked inside the fucking car. He was inside, and I was OUTSIDE. I could not get to my baby. This was an UNNATURAL STATE.

And there was of course the rain soaking me, a minor issue in comparison and hardly noticed by me at the time, but not the most ideal situation all told. And the poor souls who were waiting inside the Whole Foods for the fire engine to move so they could leave with their groceries on this stormy, shitty night. And the other people staring, and the store patron saying “That woman locked her BABY in the CAR!” to another patron. And the embarrassment and anxiety about interacting with fire men (four of them!), cops (and four more of them!), men who all of a sudden seemed so ADULT compared to me, this goddamned kid standing next to a car whose alarm system she doesn’t even understand, failing to answer questions in syntactically sound sentences because every brain cell is devoted to internal screaming of MY BABY! MY BABY!

Long story short, they get into the car. I get my keys. I grab my baby. I stand under the awning, away from the blasted car, fora few minutes to calm down before driving again. Henry is a happy camper.

Rather than head home in red-faced-shame-and-mid-panic-attack, I only drive a block, to the friend’s house, where there will be sympathetic souls and a glass of white wine. Henry eats a dinner consisting entirely of strawberries (“bear-eh? bear-eh? more? bear-eh?”) and one single cracker. We stay past his bedtime, hoping the rain which has now reach Old Testament proportions will die down a bit. It doesn’t really, so we leave.

And while I’m nursing down an overtired baby, enjoying a moment of peace and closeness with him after the shock of the Whole Foods Incident, my hair and shoes still damp, someone knocks on my fucking door.

The look on my face when I opened that door, Henry in my arms rubbing his eyes and blinking at the light. That poor, well-meaning environmental activist.

Baby Daddy didn’t get home until past midnight, so I didn’t relate the saga to him until this morning. And I waited quite a while as I was in possibly the most foul mood I have ever been in. All the anger and regret and fear and frustration and embarrassment that I suppose never hit me last night dropped down on my head this morning and I went through some sort of PTSD, except replace Post, Traumatic, Stress and Disorder with Displacement, OfFearandAnxiety, Onto, and AnnoyanceatPartner.

All of a sudden he was an asshole who got to sleep in and wasn’t helping around the house and had NO! IDEA! What I do around here! And look at him with his smug Saturday morning lolling around! Doesn’t he see all the dishes? Has he changed THREE poopy diapers already today? What has he ever been through! Until I broke down weeping and told the story and you know what? I still feel pretty unhinged this evening.

Which is why I couldn’t make this story funnier. It has all the elements of comedy fit for a parenting blog. Parental naivete and scatterbrained-ness! Unwitting hijinks from a toddler! Judgment from other parents! Modern technology! Bad weather! People with guns outnumbering you 4 to 1! Fire trucks!

But it wasn’t funny. It will be funny, years from now, and it can be funny, now, to you, if you like. I won’t hold it against you. I’ve heard nearly identical stories and laughed heartily. But I can’t laugh yet.