My own firemen episode

I am sick. Not like lay-in-bed kind of sick, but talk-like-a-smoker-cow-frog kind of sick. My voice is GONE.

So this afternoon, after avoiding phone calls all day, Andrew calls to tell me he got a message on his phone from a member of our stake presidency that he was trying to get a hold of me. I told Andrew to call him back for me to see what he needed, because I couldn't talk on the phone. Andrew called back a few minutes later and said, "Pres. Waite is calling the house phone in a few minutes. Make sure you answer." So, reluctantly, I answered. And got called to the stake choir! My wish came true. But anway, that's not the point. So I had to make a phone call to the choir director to talk about details. Since the kids were being a little noisy, I stepped into the garage to talk on the phone. I could hear the kids all crying and tried to get off quickly. Eva was sobbing, "Where's Mommy, Bubba?" I felt bad and cracked open the garage door to let her know where I was. I shut it to finish my conversation. She stood by the door crying. And then...she locked it.

So I got off the phone, hearing Dean's crying escalate quickly, and tried to croak to Eva to unlock the door. But her mental powers seemed to disintigrate as I spoke, and she could NOT unlock it. After a few minutes, I started to lose it. I dug through the garage - every shelf, every tool box, the car - trying to find something to pick the lock with. Nothing. I started to cry and panic. Eva started to panic even more. She pulled up a chair to reach the lock (like she had shrunk since locking it) and deadbolted the door, now making it absolutely impossible for me to get in through that door. I knew she wouldn't be able to undo that one no matter what I said. Dean still screamed away, so hard that I thought he would pass out. I tried not to let my ideas of the terrible possiblities that could happen (and surely would! knives! the stove! the oven! broken glass!) creep in, but alas. In complete hysteria, I called 911.

In retrospect, it's probably a good thing I called when it wasn't a true life-and-death emergency. Just so I know when I'm actually about to die that I will have to answer questions and be redirected to people. WHAT? I hope that if I were bleeding to death the situation would have been handled differently. As it was, the operator was very rude. "You got locked out of your house? How? Like on accident?" No, sir. On purpose. I'm doing all this to get attention. OF COURSE IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! WOULD I BE CALLING 911 IF I HAD PLANNED TO GET LOCKED OUT? Anyway. I was redirected to the fireman. I told him my address (or rather, squeaked out my address, hoping he could understand me. Andrew said listening to me talk today is like having someone push the mute button every couple of words.). They came quickly - less than 5 minutes.

When I say "they," I mean a swarm of at least 8 handsome, tall, strong, friendly, uniform-clad firemen. I couldn't help but think of that Modern Family episode with the firemen. If I'd have known they were coming, I might have put on a nice shirt, you know? (But remember, this was an ACCIDENT, which, by definition, means I did not plan for it to happen. Operator.) They swooped in on their big powerful truck and saved us. By going around to the back door and having Eva unlock that and open it up.

Umm, hello? Why did I not think of that? Talk about feeling stupid. In my hysteria, I didn't even think about the fact that the kids know how to unlock that door. Not to mention they would be able to see me talking them through it in case their brains pooped out, like what happened at the garage.

I called Andrew (after leaving him a tearful, impossible-to-understand message earlier) and said, "I got back in the house. I called 911 and the firemen came. It was totally stupid." He called back and first thing he asked when I answered was, "Did you at least put on a nice shirt?" He gets it. (And let it be known: even after seeing all those firemen, I'd still pick Andrew.)

And our next FHE lesson WILL be on how to unlock doors, and will include hiding a key outside, in case of a repeat episode. Although I wouldn't mind those firemen coming back. Kidding, honey, I'm kidding. But maybe I should hide a cute shirt out there with the key. Just in case.