Yesterday morning was Toby's 9 month check-up with the pediatrician. He is, of course, beautiful and perfect and developing right along schedule. I greeted this news with cheer and blithely exited the doctor's office and headed out into sweltering 103 degree afternoon.
Being the good mom that I am, I used the remote starter and got the air conditioning running so as not to put the boys into a veritable oven.
Jack, who is totally obsessed with car keys (a genetic trait inherited from his father, who is unreasonably proud of this behavior) threw the beginnings of an ear-shattering tantrum trying to get his hands on mine. So, I tossed them into the front seat and out of his view - which solved the immediate problem.
Once Jack and Toby were both safely buckled in and settled, I closed the rear doors and reached for my door handle. Just in time to realize that I had started the remote-start with one of the doors open. Which meant that as soon as all doors were again closed, the car automatically locked itself.
With my keys inside.
Now, our remote start will run the car (which also means the air conditioning) for 5 minutes before shutting itself off. Which meant I had roughly 5 minutes before the greenhouse effect began warming the interior of the car to a lethal temperature. And just that morning T had sent me a link to this horrible article.
I tried all the door handles again. I tried to open the trunk. I tried to get Jack to let himself out of his seatbelt (which I had just taught him NEVER to do) and unlock the car from the inside. The clock continued ticking down. I checked my cell phone. No signal. I glanced at the office building 50 yards or so away. I could run back to the doctor's office and use their phone, but that would mean leaving the kids all alone while I tried to explain the situation. I started to feel dizzy, like the ground had suddenly moved underneath me and I might fall over.
Just as I felt the bile rising in my throat, a handsome man with an Italian name and an accent to match pulled up in his SUV. He asked if I needed help, and I explained my situation as briefly and coherently as possible. (More the former than the latter, I'm sure.)
He pondered for a moment, then checked his car for something with which to jimmy the lock. When he came up empty-handed, he thought for a minute then ,in a burst of inspiration, unscrewed the antenna from his car and bent a hook into the end of it.
The auto-start finished and, as the engine clicked off, my stomach dropped to somewhere below my navel. Toby was screaming now and Jack, seeing the look on my face as I peered helplessly at him through the window, began to cry and tried again to free himself from his seat harness.
In that moment, I realized exactly how devestating it would be if anything happened to my boys. I knew I would break through the glass of the window with my bare hands if I had to, but I was going to get my babies OUT OF THAT CAR.
I looked at my good samaritan and said "should I call 911?" He handed me his cell phone but said "Not yet.. just give me one more minute."
I watched the sweat beading up on Jack's forehead. I could hear Toby screaming through the door. I put my thumb on the 9, trying to decide whether to dial or pick up a big rock to smash the window.
And as suddenly as my nightmare had begun, it ended. With a click and a sigh of relief, my rescuer popped the lock and opened the door.
I flew to Toby's side and wiped the sweat from his brow. In the 3 or 4 minutes since the air conditioning stopped running the car had heated to a sweltering temperature and both kids were soaked in sweat. I pulled Toby from his seat and held him to me while Jack looked at me expectantly, happy to see I was no longer upset.
Lost in my own little world, I faintly heard a throat clear. It was my Italian, who had just finished reaffixing his bent-beyond-repair antenna to the hood of his SUV. "Okay.. I'm going to head out now."
I turned to him sheepishly, embarrassed to have forgotten my rescuer. "Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. I can't thank you enough. Thank you for saving us." He waved me off, grabbed his cell phone, climbed into his car, and pulled away. I didn't even get his name.
In the grand scheme of things the fact that, when I finally pulled out of the parking lot, I left my cell phone on top of the car to be thrown violently off and into the road, then run over by half of Purcellville before I realized what had happened and went back to retrieve the sad little pieces... well, it hardly seems worth mentioning. It was merely the doo-doo icing on a horrid sequence of events, and it's easily replaceable.
Not so quickly put aside is my eternal gratitude for the Shining Knight who stopped to assist me, a complete stranger (not to mention a wild-eyed woman pounding desperately on a car window) and reunited me with my babies, safe and sound.
Wherever you are, from the bottom of my heart - Thank You. My Hero.
tags: motherhood,life
1 comment:
But you did get his name. "A handsome man with an Italian name and an accent to match", remember?
Jesus, Mel. I choked up a little reading this. You're a lucky woman, you know that?
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