Kids, Cars, And Stress
AdventureDad | November 26Children gets me into all sorts of trouble. My latest little incident involved my kids, our car, and the children trapped inside. Would you have panicked in the following situation?
We had just finished shopping at the local mall and were putting the kids into the car. It was chilly outside so I started the car and then strapped the kids into their child seats. I closed the door and then tried to open the drivers side door. Locked! I looked around and realized all doors were locked. Somehow I must have activated the power lock when I started the car and all doors locked automatically. Just great. There we were in the parking lot with the car running and the kids trapped inside.
The kids were fortunately in a great mood so we pretended nothing was wrong. I sprinted the 1.5 mile home while wife played all sorts of hide and seek games outside the car to keep the kids busy. I was back relatively quickly with a set of spare keys and the kids never did realize we were in trouble. Fortunately I’m used to extreme stress in my work, plus I’m also boring, so I never did panic. Wife never had a chance to think before I started sprinting otherwise she would surely have started flapping like a salmon. Who said having kids was boring and uneventful?
I’m always afraid that will happen with the automatic locks. Those things drive me nuts. You were lucky to be close to home.
A little OCD goes a long way sometimes. I have, on occassion, run around to the driver side and opened the door, and then run back around and closed the door on the side where my kids’ carseats are just to avoid this problem.
For whatever reason, even though the button says to push –> to Unlock, I just don’t trust it.
Sometimes that OnStar doesn’t seem like such a ripoff.
My husband, Chhimi, is always worried about those auto locks in our van and about potentially locking in Erik (our almost 20 month old son) and locking us out in the process. The fear probably stems from our previous incident of locking ourselves out of our old car before. For me, not really, when I start the car, I either have driver door opened OR I make sure to UNLOCK the locks before I close off the passenger doors. Of course, if I did get locked out, I would probably have freaked out and call the tow truck company right away!!
I’m triple check my coat pocket or purse for my keys before closing the door - in fact, I was beginning to wonder if I was being too neurotic but your story just reaffirms my habit. I have even thought about getting yet another extra key and hiding it in my purse. Thanks for feeding into my paranoia - it’s nice to know I’m not alone.
My wife did the same thing when our son was just a few months old. They ended up sending out the fire department, who just happened to have a reporter along with them doing one of those “day in the life of the fire department” pieces. So she got to be on the evening news very briefly for her little mistake.
I locked myself out of my running car often enough BEFORE I had my brain sucked out of my head by my 2 year old so I have a key in a box under my car. I’ve only had to use it once, in the garage. Better safe than busting out the window. Again. :)
It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that I carry an extra car key in my wallet.