Engine House No. 1 to the Rescue

Engine House No. 1 to the Rescue
A true-life embarrassing moment

         What else could possibly go wrong?  With the house on the market and three small children, my job was never ending.  Realtors could and did call at a moments' notice to show the house to prospective buyers.  Tim's new job was fifty miles away and he wouldn't be home for another two days.  Meanwhile, the baby was teething and cranky, the girls were irritable and missing Daddy, and I was trying to keep the house clean between meals, laundry, three children, and sewing for my sister's wedding. 

         As the dinner hour approached I decided to head to the neighborhood grocery store for a few needed items; I thought a change of scenery might calm everyone down.  In the parking lot, I fastened eight-month-old Nathaniel into the carrier and connected the straps across my shoulders; I lifted two-year-old Fallon into the cart, and took six-year old Heather by the hand and headed inside.  Within minutes we had gathered everything on the list and proceeded through the checkout.

         Back at the car I searched the diaper bag for the keys but they weren't to be found.  Peering through the window I saw the edge of my keychain sticking out from under the blanket in the car seat.  "What do we do now, Mommy?" Heather asked.

         With tears of frustration forming in my eyes I crossed the street and stepped beneath the canopy of the local farmers' vegetable stand.  Marie greeted us cheerfully.  Upon hearing our dilemma she offered to keep the children while I walked across the main street to the firehouse.

         Inside, I spoke with the Fire Chief, who assured me if I returned to the store parking lot, he and a couple of his men would grab their tools and be right over to help.  Relieved, I walked back to the vegetable stand and returned to the lot with my children.

         The sight of a woman standing beside her car with three small children and several bags of groceries drew the attention of onlookers.  As the moments passed, other shoppers stopped to ask if they could help but I shyly assured them help was on the way.  I had no idea how much help was on the way.

         "Mommy, look," Heather said, pointing toward the firehouse.  The traffic light in front of the firehouse had changed from the flashing yellow warning light to solid red, indicating all traffic was to stop so the fire truck and other emergency vehicles could pull out without obstruction.

         To my horror, the firemen didn't just grab a few tools, as they'd promised; they grabbed the whole dang truck and, with lights flashing and sirens blaring, the entire company of the Spanish Lake Fire Department, Engine House No. 1 came charging to my rescue!

         A crowd gathered in the parking lot and passers by pulled in to watch, thinking something terrible had happened, but it was just me...locking the keys in the car. 

         The girls thought it was grand.  "Mommy," Heather whispered urgently, "they brought the fire truck out just for us!"  I smiled and nodded, not wanting to take away from her enjoyment of the moment, but inside I wanted to crawl through the grate in the parking lot and disappear.  As if all of this attention wasn't bad enough, it got worse when the local paper picked up the story.  The bold headline cried out: 

Local Mother of Three Rescued by Fire Department
After Locking Keys in Car

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ID: 284049   (Rated: ASR) Boy, Was My Face Red  True-life embarrassing moments, large and small...most of them my own by justme