Why I Don't Mind Paying Taxes

Baby on my hip, I walked cheerfully out of the bank, holding up my car keys and jingling them to amuse her. "Keys," I said cheerfully as I unlocked the car. I tossed them on the front seat to have my hands free for buckling her into her car seat. Then I kissed her on the forehead and slipped into what biologists term a fixed action pattern: locked the car doors, shut them firmly, and walked around to the driver's side, reaching into my pocket for my keys as I went. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no! There was my baby, grinning up at me from the back seat. There were the car keys, sprawled on the front seat. There were the four doors, firmly locked. Ahhhh!

As the first jolt of panic hit my heart, I ran around the car trying the doors anyway. Of course none of them opened. Then I ran back into the bank. There were tons of people standing around in the lobby waiting, but my stride got the attention of the employee at the main desk, who glanced up at me in alarm. "I just locked my baby and my keys in my car! Can I use your phone?" I blurted. The phone didn't have a long enough cord to reach the counter, but he was nice enough to dial the number for me and hand me the receiver.

Quickly, I told my husband what had happened. He has the only other key for the car. "Can you come meet me?" I asked. But how? We only have one car, and we live about a mile from the closest train station. He would have to catch a bus to the station, then it would be a 45 minute ride to the closest station to me, then he still would have no way to get to the bank. As we talked, I thought of the sun beating down into the car. Of course, I had parked in the sun. "There used to be a spare key hidden on the car," he remembered. It was in one of those magnetic boxes you stick under the front bumper. "I'll go look," I said, and hurriedly hung up.

A few minutes later, I was road tar and oil up to the elbow, and my hands were bleeding from brushing over the fragments of glass embedded under the bumper. I couldn't find the box, though. I think it probably fell off years ago.

Next I sized up the car windows and tried to decide which one to break. If I could smash the little one in the back, I could probably reach in and unlock the door. But I couldn't see anything in the parking lot that looked sturdy enough to smash a car window with. No rocks or chunks of asphalt or anything. I also felt anxious about putting a rock through a window when my daughter's car seat was right there - even if it's supposed to be safety glass.

I ran back into the bank. The bank guy winced slightly as he noticed the oil and grease all over my hands, but he dialed for me and handed me the receiver again. "I can't find it!" I told my husband. He advised me to call the police. So in a minute I found myself speaking to a 911 dispatch operator. "Is the baby in distress?" she asked. "Not yet," I said. In fact, the baby had fallen asleep at this point, but that didn't diminish my panic much.

It probably only took a few minutes for help to arrive, but it seemed like ages. I leaned over the back of the car and tried to block the sun with my body while I waited. Inside the car, I could see my daughter's face was red and there were droplets of sweat beaded on her brow. She flopped around uneasily in her sleep. Finally, in the distance, I heard a siren - gradually getting louder - oh my gosh, is that for me? I had expected a single cop car. Instead, there was a giant rescue squad ambulance van, about as big as a fire engine but without the ladder. It took up most of the parking lot. A couple of guys in their early twenties hopped out and came over to the car, and, with a nod of greeting at me, started working on the problem.

First they wedged a tool that looked like an ice scraper into the side of the door and levered it open as far as possible. Then they used a pump to crack it open even more. With a wire they tried to roll down the window or jiggle the lock mechanism open. Minutes passed. After a while one of them glanced at me and spoke for the first time, with a sheepish grin: "It usually doesn't take this long." At least now I know the car is hard to steal. It took multiple tries with different tools from their kit, and about 10 minutes of work, before the door suddenly popped open. "Yes!" one of them said.

Quickly I opened the back door and hauled the car seat out so my baby could get some air. I gushed some thanks to the rescue guys, who were all business ("all in a day's work, ma'am") as they headed back to their van. The bank customers who were standing around watching the scene dispersed. I drove to my parents' house, which was nearby, so I could call my husband back and reassure him.

Later that afternoon, I got a couple of spare keys made. Of course, this will probably never happen again. But if it does, I'll be ready. And in the meantime, yea for 911 and emergency rescue services!