The Post In Which Fence-Sitters Get Violently Shoved to the Correct Side

If any of you have been questioning whether I’m the queen of all idiots or just the village idiot, wonder no more.

I give you my dreadful tale of embarrassing woe:

But first, a little back story. Luke has been charismatically disrespectful as of late. Megan came to see me a fortnight ago. After witnessing some gnashing of teeth, a suggestion was made to turn Luke’s doorknob around so that I could contain the little bugger whilst mothering the other one. Megan, I totally blame you for what follows. (Not really, I’m just kidding. Kind of. Almost.)

So, yesterday (and by yesterday I mean several days ago---why can I never do things on time?) started out deceivingly good. No real gloom and doom on my end, a rarity in recent months. We enjoyed the late morning at the park and when we came home the two critters and I headed upstairs to play “trains”. (I like to try out the ‘good mother’ role every once in a while.) (It never sticks.)

I walked in first with the baby, laid him on Luke’s bed, and sat down for some track construction. In the meantime, Luke came in and shut the door. Heh heh. This is where it gets good. Luke asked for milk. I tried to leave the room, but the doorknob was alarmingly immovable.

Jiggle.

Jiggle…jiggle…JIGGLE.

Huh. Not good.

I rummaged around in Luke’s toy box for something to pick the lock.

Nothing.

I opened his closet door. Ah ha-- a wire hanger. I can do this! I’ve read WikiHow on picking locks.

Twenty-minutes later…yeah, WikiHow, not so helpful.

I quickly calculated my options: Break legs while jumping out window, wait three hours for Chris to come home, open windows and yell hysterically until someone comes to help.

I opened the window and braced myself…

You thought I was going to jump didn’t you?

I was. But, I had no idea if the front door was open and what good would my daring act of bravery have been if I was unconscious from blood loss and locked out of the house? I mean, how stupid do you think I am?

So, I put my pride aside and picked the next best option. I hung myself out the window like a lady of ill repute and called out to the weed-whacking workers across the street…

and the man jogger with the headphones…

and all the cars with the windows rolled up…

I finally got the attention of one of the workers across the street who stopped what he was doing, hit his buddy on the arm, then did the “man nod” in my direction. After some misinterpreted signaling, they stayed put.

Stupid man workers.

Finally, 45 minutes into the ordeal, our neighbors’ lawn care guys pulled up in a truck and I did my best blonde damsel-in-distress gig.

It worked. One of them came over and freed us from the awful nightmare.

“Boy, that’s not something you come across every day. I’ll have to remember this one,” he said as he chuckled out the door.

Gee thanks.

After he left, I picked up the shattered pieces of my self-respect and put both kids in front of a Baby Einstein video…they’ve got to get smart somehow…I’m only going to give them the idiot genes.