By popular demand: the story of the lockout

It must have been a year and a half ago, now.I guess I’m not surprised I didn’t tell everyone this story right away. It’s hardly my proudest moment. We had all just recently moved into Jeremy and D’one’s place here in Chicago. I was busy getting the hang of my new routine, balancing the needs of a stay-at-home parent with the needs of a housekeeper. Gabe was sleeping peacefully, and I decided (poorly) to step out to do something trivial — check the mail, or get Steph’s dry cleaning half-a-block down the street. Something very close by. In my mind, I would be back in five minutes, tops. But, I didn’t get more than halfway down the stairs before I realized I had forgotten my keys, and locked myself out!

Well. What to do.

I tried to stay calm, thought about the options. Luckily, I had only locked myself out of our unit, not the whole building. I decided to wake Gabe up and see if he could help me with the door. I knocked a few times, and sure enough, soon I heard the pitter patter of sleep feet and then, “Daddy?” I explained that I was locked out, and asked Gabe gently if he could unlock the door. I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible, even though my heart was thumping. I kept having these horrible fantasies that Gabe would be like, “Bwa ha! Now I can play with the knives!”

Gabe tried a couple of different things, and just couldn’t get it. I tried to explain about the flat knob inside the door handle which could unlock the door if he would twist it. But either Gabe’s at-that-point two-year-old mind or his little fingers couldn’t grasp it. He started to get agitated by a horrible combination of fear and frustration. He started to cry, and my heart broke completely. I might have started to cry as well, I don’t remember. I switched gears quickly and assured him that everything was going to be okay, and that it was okay that he couldn’t figure out the door lock. I told him that I was going to go away to get help. I didn’t want me to go (can I heart break more after its already broken??), but I had to step away to call the key guy.

My phone was on the inside. So, started knocking on doors. Every door or two I would run back to my door to check on Gabe. I was starting to panic, and wondering how easy it would be to break into our place. I found a way from the hallway into the back courtyard, where I could get to the back door. Maybe I left it open? No luck there. I ran back, to check on Gabe, then went back to knocking on doors. Finally I found a neighbor, the very very quiet one who lives at the top of our building. She was very sweet, let me into her apartment, let me Google a key guy, and let me use her phone. Then, back down to my place where I waited.

The waiting was interminable. It probably wasn’t more then ten minutes, but it felt like forever. From there, the guy quickly got the lock open.

I opened the door slowly. The house wasn’t a wreck. No blood. Everything looked fine. Gabe had fallen back to sleep right next to the door. (He also fell asleep at the first movie we ever took him to, “Horton Hears a Who”, when one of the trailers scared him — it was one of his weirder, more useful, fear reflexes when he was younger). Once I saw that everything was okay, I started to focus on not letting the key guy see that I had locked myself out with a toddler in the house! I paid him quickly without letting him in (the charge was pretty heinous, to add insult to injury); and then finally, finally let a sigh of relief. I curled up in bed with my precious little guy and thanked my lucky stars.

The only thing left to do was tell the wife and survive her (very justified!) tongue lashing.