Classic (borrowing Windy's fitting title)

Quick embarrassing story to share.

I was inspired by Windy's post and didn't want to leave her feeling like the only person to which "those" things happen.

When Cade was a smaller baby, before we put him in the nursery at church, we chose which service to attend based on his sleeping pattern that day. Our goal was to go at the time he would normally be napping so he would sleep through the service. It actually even worked out the way we planned a couple of times.

So this one time we got to church and Cade and I stayed behind in the van so I could nurse him and get him sleepy, while Mike took Kyle in to Sunday school. Mike had to take the keys because the key chain had the tag to check-in Kyle.

Sitting in the church parking lot, I locked Cade and myself in because I'm a cautious kind of girl. I finished up nursing him and hit the unlock button. Nothing happened.

That's when a vision came to my mind of a few days before when I had reached in through the van's open window to unlock it and I guess because the keys weren't in the ignition the auto locks didn't work, so I pulled up on the lock and it triggered the alarm.

Any type of confinement, whether real or imagined, makes me panicky and light-headed. When my ring is too tight to slide easily off of my finger I get claustrophobic; so feeling like I was trapped in the van with Cade really got my heart racing. The air in the van seemed to be getting thinner. I was sweating. My head was swirling with scenarios.

I knew I had to get a grip and be the grown-up.

I got the van manual out of the glove compartment and looked for a way to get the van unlocked without setting the alarm off. No luck.

I knew Mike would not come looking for us. I would have to be gone for approximately 3 days before he would be concerned. It's not an indicator of his love for me, it's just that he does not get panicked which actually balances me out quite nicely. If he is 30 minutes late I start envisioning ambulances and hospitals. Mike's response to my being late is something like, "I wasn't worried I just figured you ran into someone you knew or remembered something else you needed to do."

I thought for a second about that email that went around claiming you can use your remote key chain thingy to unlock your car through the phone, but a) Mike was the one with the keys and I was looking at his cell phone beside me, b) I didn't think I should ask our neighbors to break into our house to get our spare keys, c) I was pretty sure the email wasn't true.

I realized I could either wait in the van for over an hour or pull the lock up manually and trigger the alarm. So I put on my baby-toting wrap (this wrap comes with an instructional DVD and believe you me it was no small feat getting into it in the passenger seat of a van), got Cade into the wrap, climbed over to the driver's seat thinking there was an ever so slight possibility the alarm would not be triggered from that side, took a deep breath, counted to three, pulled the lock up, and the chorus of beeping, honking, light-flashing commotion began.

I walked as quickly away from the van as I could, trying to look as non-criminal-like as possible. I didn't make eye contact with anyone in the parking lot or look back. It was a long walk to church and by the time I got to Mike and he got back out to the van with the keys the alarm had stopped.

Okay, in my head that was a quick story. Obviously I'm a wordy-girl.