Sleepyheads, rain, and a cautionary tale involving luxury SUV's

How's that for a catchy title? Do ya think I could throw anything else in there?

Last night's Indy stuff got rained out. Seriously, the rain held off until it was time for qualifying - it poured for fifteen minutes and stopped - then they dried the track off - and then the bottom fell out and it was like a monsoon. I guess the good thing is that we had a lot of fun with The Fox and his family along with Intern Doug and his younger brother. Those two are so squeaky clean that I think their eyes were the size of dinner plates by the time we finished with them, and I'm sure Doug's brother went home and had lots of stories to tell his parents about the cream job Doug has this summer. You know, the one with the crazy people. That would be me and the Fox.

This morning we slept in until an unprecedented after-kid hour of 8:30, then while the boys were downstairs I took another catnap. Oh, and then slept like another hour this afternoon. Finally got off my ass around 4:30 to take a shower so we could go get some dinner and the phone was ringing. One of the badasses, Jay, was in total hysteria because her mother-in-law, who was supposed to be watching their youngest daughter, had accidentally let the dogs out of the house and they were rampaging all over the neighborhood. And of course, Jay and Harry and their oldest son weren't home, so she was hoping that I could go help her MIL round the dogs up.

So in true dog rodeo style, I armed myself with a leash and a huge bag of chicken jerky. No dog can resist chicken jerky, which probably has doggie crack sprinkled all over it. The boys and I loaded up in the Pimp Mobile to head over there and attempt to wrangle these two Jack Russell terriers back into the house. We arrived to find the MIL and Phoebe out in the garage, the dogs back in the fence, and everyone locked out of the house. So I slipped off to the truck to call Jay and let her know what was going on and asked her what I could do to help. "Kill my fucking mother-in-law...." Um, sorry. Love ya, but not that much.

Speaking of being locked out, this is one of the few times that I'm going to get all Mommy-ish on your asses because I witnessed something scary as shit this week. Remember how freaking hot it was this week? Well, we saw a toddler lock himself inside his parents' car at the preschool, and they couldn't get him out.

This couple is like the weirdest family at the preschool. The wife is pretty Stepfordish and the guy looks like he's totally whipped. They drive together to work every freaking day in either a BMW sedan or one of the BMW SUV's. They have one child who at the best is two years old. So last Thursday, the child was having a total meltdown at the end of the day because he didn't want to leave the preschool - so in an attempt to placate him, they did what probably most of us have done from time to time and let the child carry the car keys out to the car. Well, I should really clarify this and say that Mrs. Stepford had given the kid the keys - this will be important later.

So what happened was they loaded the kid into their BMW SUV and Mr. Stepford closed the door. And in a split second, they realized that the vehicle was locked - I guess the kid had pressed the lock button. The mother ran into the preschool where the owners had one of those slim-jim things that you can get into a car with if you're locked out. He tried for ten minutes and had no luck, and while all this was going on the other owner Debbie had called the police just as a backup in case.

And it's a good thing they did, because when the police and the fire department arrived Jim still hadn't gotten into the vehicle and they were on 15 minutes. It was 97 degrees outside. Mrs. Stepford was starting to get a little panicky. The police used their slim-jim thing too, and no one could get into the vehicle. Finally, they came up with the idea of breaking the small side window to reach in and unlock the doors...well, apparently in BMW's you can't do that. You can't manually unlock a door by reaching through. Not to mention that by this point, they couldn't even get the keys from the kid because in his frenzy he had dropped them behind himself in the carseat so that he couldn't reach them. Plus, I doubt that many two-year-olds would really understand what was going on other than Mommy and Daddy are outside in hysterics.

Finally the Stepfords relented to having the entire window busted in and one of the firemen crawled in, retrieved the keys, and was able to get the kid out. This was forty-five minutes after the whole nightmare started. FORTY-FIVE MINUTES of having a young child stuck in a vehicle on a 97-degree day. Personally, and this is just me, but the second Monkey Man would've done something like that I would've run in the school, grabbed a heavy object, and broken the window right away. Screw the damn deductible. I'd like to think that I value my kid's safety a little more than a $500 deductible.

So the kid turned out to be okay, but apparently Mrs. Stepford went totally postal on the Mr. accusing him of it being all his fault because HE closed the door. I guess being the one that gave the kid the keys in the first damn place is a whole other story, but whatever.

I guess there are a few morals to this story. As in BMW's are great for being hard to break into, but when you actually NEED to break into one in an emergency well you're pretty much screwed. And maybe if you have a kid who is only placated by carrying the keys, get some old stupid blank keys or an old set of keys you don't use anymore and keep them in your bag for just such a case. It might save you a lot of heartache someday.

On tomorrow's agenda, we are going to see Ratatouille, make a long-awaited return to The Mighty Church of the Waffle, buy a new shower caddy, and take a nap. Should be a great, great day.

Oh, and anyone have a suggestion for something to wear to a 20th high school reunion? That is being held in the Moose Lodge? In an area that still believes that 80's hair is the way to go? Discuss and please post links if you have ideas. This would be Joey's reunion and I suspect he will be the only one there without a mullet.