Father of the Year

Okay, so my Dad is officially Father of the Year.

Earlier tonight Mom had a birthday dinner to attend so he and I went to Whole Foods to eat dinner and then get some groceries.

All was well until we got to the parking lot. We were parked in the downstairs garage of the lot over in the corner and Dad sat me in the driver's seat of the car and went around to put the groceries in the passenger seat. Then he closed the door and as he was walking around to the driver's side I grabbed the keys out of the counsel and hit the old LOCK button. And that's when the fun began.

First he and I talked for about ten minutes. I had the wrong key but he talked me through getting to the right key but I just couldn't find the unlock button. I kept hitting the lock button over and over.

So Dad called 911 and explained what was going on so then a big fire truck came and four firemen began trying to rescue me. One of them actually sounded like he should've been selling hot dogs at a stand on 79th and Western... I mean, this guy's accent had Serious South Sider all over it. And they had these wires they stuck in the car trying to open the handle, then another contraption trying to push down the unlock button. That's me in the photo below standing up with my hands against the window.

In the meantime I dropped the keys on the floor and couldn't reach them and got a little upset. I was crying for about ten minutes when Dad mentioned that we should probably just break the window. But I didn't want any windows broken so I just stopped crying and sat back down in the driver's seat and took the whole thing in.

Here's where more fun started happening. See, the firemen were not in standard black and yellow coat gear so someone thought they were trying to break into Dad's car and called the cops. So three cop cars came screaming into the parking garage, lights and sirens a-blaring. They soon realized that these were firemen, not hoodrats, that were trying to break into the car, and they were doing it for good reason. One was a mom and got a real kick out of it because she just had the same thing happen to her over the Summer.
Then Dad explained to them how close I was earlier to getting myself unlocked so after a few laughs Mr. Hot Dog guy said, "Eh, let's give 'er another shot, ya know?" and they decided to put all their faith in me. A fireman used the hook to pick up the keys off the ground and drop them in my lap. Again, I grabbed the Honda key first and hit the buttons, hoping the door would unlock, to no avail. Then my head started spinning... I had six firemen (two more specialty lock firemen guys had arrived), three policemen and Dad telling me what to do til one of the guys said, "Hey, everyone be quiet and let her Dad talk to her." Thank God for that dude. So I got back to the right key (upon which one of the firemen said, "Whoa - she's pretty ----ing smart, man.") but I couldn't quite get that unlock button to press down. (And yes, Mr. Fireman Sir, I am pretty smart, but that language is unnecessary.)

All the while one of the specialty guys had gotten the hook back in the door and was pulling on the handle until... POP, the door opened.

I was pretty stoked to get out of there because the lights on the police car were still flashing and I wanted to see them from outside the car.

So that's my story - locked in a car for nearly 50 minutes, rescued by what seemed to be the entire Chicago Fire Department and three Chicago Policemen/women.

And then it was photo op time.

The moral of the story here is something like, "If you go to the grocery store with a Dad who is a candidate for Father of the Year and he leaves you in the freaking driver's seat with the keys right next to you and you lock yourself in the car, you will eat up approximately $8,257.23 in taxpayer money getting rescued." or something like that.

Oh well - all's well that ends well...