I am SO lucky...

I am SO lucky that I am a good mother.

After all, what would have happened if I had been a bad mother, like some you see on the nightly news doing all sorts of crazy things?

I am SO lucky that I have kids who keep their shoes on in the car. Otherwise, I might have had to put all of their shoes back on before unbuckling them. And, of course, SUPPOSING they'd take their shoes off and I'd have to put them on, what would have happened if one of the shoes had fallen on the OTHER side of the car seats and I couldn't have reached it?

I'm just glad that this scenario hadn't happened, because IF it had, I might have shut the car door to walk around to the other side to locate said dropped shoe, ONLY TO FIND that the car was locked! (Because I MIGHT have put the keys down in the car in order to get their shoes back on). All I can say is I am glad this did not happen to me...ESPECIALLY since it is about 105 degrees OUTSIDE the car, let alone how hot it would've been inside...

After all, at that point I would have had to leave my screaming girls alone out in the parking lot while I ran into the store. And imagine the sheer embarrassment I would have felt if I had had to ask someone to borrow a phone to call the police! Sheesh, and it would've only gotten worse IF the employees started gathering around, asking what was going on. What would've been really bad is if they started whispering and pointing, "Is THAT the Mom who locked her kids in the car without air conditioning?" And to top it off, what if they had started telling my story to their other employee-buddies on those cute little headsets of theirs--as if I was some freak show. I am SO glad that I didn't have to go through that.

What makes this TOTALLY IMAGINARY scenario even better, would have been when there were NO highway patrol able (or willing) to come and rescue my children, and it would've been 45 minutes for a AAA-AA-A1 Locksmith to get to our location. Luckily for me, in this unlucky story, there might have been a manager who claimed to know how to break into a car. So several employees and I would have gone back out to the car, and probably would have found some very sweaty, screaming little girls. And, of course, I can only WONDER how much louder they would've started screaming once some strange men started trying to open the doors, jiggle the windows, and trying to console them through the glass.

Right about now, I would've had to make a hard decision: break the window, or let an OfficeMax manager try and stick a hanger down into my door. After consulting with a few 17-year-old employees, I MIGHT have decided it would cost less to try the hanger approach. So the OfficeMax Manager, Mark, would have had to cut and rip off the rubber lining to my window. While I IMAGINE this would be a simple task, it probably would have ended up being very messy and difficult, utilizing razorblades and tiny pocket knives. I SUPPOSE 2 other boys would have had to jimmy the window down and hold it open while Mark, the Manager, ever-so-carefully-and-gracefully stuck a bent hanger (lent to us by a helpful dentist next door to OfficeMax) into the window to reach the unlock button.

AND I HOPE that this all would have taken less than 30 minutes to do, because it would've been VERY hot out there in the Houston sun. So, in the end, there PROBABLY would have been 2 sweaty, little, angry girls, who would being crying to their mother all the way home, "But WHY? WHY did you lock me and leave me in the hot car?" To which I WOULD have said, "I don't know."

Like I said, it's a good thing I NEVER would have done something like this to my own children.

p.s. In this fictitious scenario, it WOULD HAVE ended up costing us $250 to fix the rubber seal on our window (which was badly mangled), versus $100 for a new window or $60 for a Highway Patrol officer. So, the moral of this story is, ALWAYS trust your local OfficeMax manager when it comes to how to save money when breaking into your car.