Tuesday 28th April
Yes, I know I am a long way behind but April was a busy month. And May. And June so far as well. Anyway, some things are worth waiting for, especially if it’s a laugh at my expense.
This day was turning out to be a great day. I had got lots of jobs done and was, which is a rare event, looking as if I was going to get all my to-do jobs done for that day. Before I did the school pick up, I had one more job to do and that was the quick shop. I do a big shop over the internet about twice a month but often nip out to an economy supermarket inbetween to top up on fruit and other bits we needed. Small shops I can handle because there is usually only one make of each food item and therefore dispenses with the need of chosing one brand over another, an activity which always causes me to fluster and go into a mild panic.
I arrived at Aldi at 2:30, which gave me a good 45 minutes to get what I needed and get to school which was only a couple of minutes away. I parked up, got the trolley, wedged Baby in and began the trolley dash. Even when I have plenty of time, I can’t do it leisurely because Aldi shopping trolleys don’t have baby harnesses in them and Baby usually remembers that after about twenty minutes, which means I then have to revert to one-handed shopping while using the other hand to pin him down so he doesn’t heave himself headfirst onto the laminate floor. He doesn’t understand why I haven’t at least let him try this once just to see what will happen, and so he makes a lot of noise which makes people turn round and stare at me as I hold a pack of ham in one hand and a child’s ankle in the other.
On this particular day, I succeeded in making it all the way around the store and to the till before he tried it, and then I gave him the job of throwing the less breakable items
onto the belt, which distracted him for a bit longer.
As I left the shop it was beginning to rain so I ran to the car and put Baby in first so he could stay dry while I put the food into bags and into the car. Then I did what I normally do when I have to return the trolley – I locked the car from the inside so that I could do it without activating the alarm and scaring Baby half to death when he moves. I ran the trolley back, got my pound and was walking back towards the car when I began to get my keys out of my pocket. Except they weren’t there.
Confused, I tried more pockets, finding them all empty. Then my heart began to beat faster as I realised that the only place they could be was in the car itself. I ran back to the car and peered in through the tinted windows and yes, there they were on the floor at Baby’s feet. I must have put them down while I strapped him in instead of putting them back in my pocket.
I began a conversation which went something like this, ‘No, no, no, no, no, nooo, no, no, nooo, no, no, no, NO, no, no, nooo, no, no, no, NO NO NO NO!’ and carried on for a bit longer.
I looked round every inch of the car but there was nothing, no handle, no chink of window, no boot lock, that would grant me the slightest hint of an entrance. Of course, that’s what we pay good money for in our cars – decent security systems – but at that moment I would have given anything to have had my car be a crappy little Escort that could be jimmied open with a coat hanger.
I kept peering through to Baby who was looking at me a bit suspiciously but fairly calmly, obviously clueless as to what I was about to put him through. Feeling the panic rising in me, and realising that my phone was trapped inside with my keys, I had to think of something fast.
I bolted back into the shop to look for a phone and / or someone who would look official and help me know what to do. My eyes were beginning to blur and I didn’t know if I was about to burst into tears, but then I saw a man in a uniform and I ran over to him and told him that I had just locked my keys, phone and eighteen month old in the car. He looked a bit shocked himself and was about to guide me to the shop phone when he said ‘Actually, you know what,’ and gave me his own mobile from his pocket. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you can use this outside.’
We ran back out and I peered back in at Baby, who started laughing as if we were in the middle of a prolonged game of peek-a-boo. At least he was having fun as I began thinking about who I could ring. I tried Richard’s mobile but there was no reply. My friend Catie had a spare house key, and so might be able to find the spare car keys at home for me, but I only knew her home number off by heart, and not her mobile, and evidently she wasn’t in that day. I then realised I needed to let school know what was happening, so I had to ring directory enquiries to get their number (and made a mental note that I must learn that too for future emergencies) and then ring them and explained in a quivering voice about the mess I had just got us all into. The secretary was very nice and told me not to worry, just to keep them up to date with what was going on. I was relieved to have that over with, but then we still weren’t any further to solving the current predicament. (Notice that with that ‘we’ I have now roped in and included the security guard into my misdemeanour and given him equal responsibility to fix it.)
The only other route to go down was the most official one, but we were left with little options so he used his radio and called in the police. There was a team in the area, they said, and could be with us in ten minutes. I started to feel more nervous as I wondered what they would actually do when they got here, and what Richard would say about whatever means they would have to take to get in.
Then suddenly, the guard’s phone rang and it was Richard! I answered it and began blubbing as I told him what I had done and where I was. He had just finished a job in Kendal, which meant he was an hour away, but was ready to set off straight away, and he had the spare car key with him.
The police arrived ten minutes later, looked around the car and confirmed what I was thinking – that there was no way in without causing damage, and it would be risky with a baby in the car as glass might fly towards him. When they heard my husband was on his way they said the best thing to do was wait for him and then the lovely police lady began jumping around the car with me in the rain, peeking into the windows and pulling faces to make Baby laugh.
There’s nothing like an emergency to bring you closer to people. I learnt the family situations of the security guard and the police man, and the name of the police lady's cat. She said that Baby was so cute that she was feeling broody and she might have to blame me if she cancelled her plans to stay child-free for the next three years. The security guard fetched me an umbrella, offered me a brew and kept the store manager updated with my situation. I learnt the different call outs the police had had that day and what a typical week in the life of an Aldi security guard is like (it explained why he was so chirpy – a break from the monotony and fifteen extra cigarette breaks rolled into one was his idea of heaven).
They left when they heard that Richard had come off the motorway and was only ten minutes away (although the lady said it was a good job they were going so she didn’t have to do him for speeding) and I was just getting into a great conversation with the guard about religion when Richard swung up like a knight in shining silver van and bleeped the car open for me.
I could have kissed him with relief but of course I didn’t, because when you’re married to a man who spends his job around the back end of cows all day, you learn some self-control until there has been some sort of showering involved. I opened the door and gave Baby a kiss, thanked the security guard who was finishing his last smoke, and high-tailed the car round to school to get the other abandoned children. And that was the first time in the whole hour-and-twenty-minutes ordeal that Baby began to cry, because he had seen his daddy and was then whisked away again.
When I got to school the boys had had a great time joining in with Year 6 football and Year 3 singing practice and weren’t bothered in the slightest. I got home to find Richard settled in front of the TV because my emergency callout had meant that he had finished his working day early, and Baby was very happy to play with him after a relaxing afternoon in the car giggling at crazy women putting on a entertaining show for him. So the only one traumatised by the whole ordeal was me, as I discovered when I changed into some dry clothes and realised my hands were still shaking.
I also discovered that some kind of miracle had occurred in the middle of it all, unbeknownst to me. When I had originally rung Richard, the reason I hadn’t got through was that he was in a mobile black spot. That particular farm in Kendal had never had mobile signal and so my three or four calls would normally have been pretty futile. However, as he was finishing the main part of that job, his phone beeped to say he had received a message and he was able to pick up my blubbery SOS clearly. Then, still to his bewilderment, he was able to ring me back and have a clear conversation with me, which made him cut the job short and get to me sooner. He even tried to ring me back straight after our conversation to say something else and got the usual blank tone to say there was no signal.
How amazing is that?
