"mom".
Folks, I did not have a normal childhood.
It wasn't necessarily... unpleasant. But now, from an almost out of the woods perspective, I am truly starting to realize that some of my character developing experiences were quite unusual.
I must've been around two at the time. I was in the backseat of my moms car, securely fastened in my adorable car seat. My mother was taking me out to the park. The day started out pretty pleasant.
Mom wanted to get lunch first, so she pulled in to the Wendy's parking lot.
She locked all of the front seat doors, and got out of the car to grab me and her purse.
She paused as she put her feet down on the pavement.
Something wasn't right.
The keys were still in the ignition.
All the doors were locked.
And of course,
her sweet little two year old daughter was still in the car.
For those of you who don't know, my mother does not do well under pressure. (Bat House, anyone?)
So naturally, this was not handled well.
Since I was a very squirmy child, my car seat was the equivalent of a straight jacket. There was no getting out of that thing. Trust me, I'd tried.
I was also a somewhat mellow child. I'm sure this situations wouldn't have shaken me up so badly if my mother hadn't decided to run, gesticulating around the parking lot screaming that her child was in danger and dehydrating (even though it was about sixty degrees out and pretty cloudy).
Naturally, someone called the police. I'm not sure what they told them, but the cops showed up wildly unprepared for lock picking. I suppose one of the workers called the cops and informed them that there was some crazy woman running around the parking lot, babbling about her dying baby.
The cops tried their hardest to unlock the door, but for some reason they had a lot of trouble.
My mom wailed that they should just smash the window open.
I'm not sure if that would've been wise considering I was still in the car, face completely exposed - but we never got the chance to find out if the cops would've gone for it.
A stranger approached.
"Oh, hey Ray," the cop said.
I'm not sure who he was, why the cop knew him by name, or why he just happened to be carrying a lock picking tool (that I later learned was called a Slim Jim).
But I am eternally thankful.
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