The Story That Almost Was

Today could have turned out to be a day that I would never ever forget. A day that would live on in my family and I'm sure one that would surely have made it into the lore of the local fire station. Fortunately, that was not my destiny. The Lord surely shone His face upon me today. And for that I am very, very grateful.

My sister-in-law is being induced today and will be giving birth to her second daughter. Today seemed like a good enough day to mail a baby gift and birthday gift for her first daughter, our niece, Erika whose birthday is next month. We will be visiting them in Virginia next month but instead of packing the gifts us I figured it would be better to mail them.

Instead of going to the post office I went to Beacon Hill Mail Center because the owner is so gosh darn nice and I want to support a local business. That and they will pack the package for you. Normally I like to save a few bucks and pack it myself but that would have required finding a box in the house which usually involves taking stuff out the box and trying to find some other container for the stuff and since I've been getting rid of lots of stuff there isn't a suitable box to be had. I didn't think it would be worth my time and it probably would have been a colossal waste of gas to go to a store, buy a box, bring it home, pack the gift then take it back to ship it. So, I let Mr. Beacon Hill Mail Center owner do the work.

But before I was able to let him do the work I had to get from the car to his store. I pulled the stroller out from the back of the car and instead of putting Gavin in it right away I grabbed the presents from the front seat and put them in the storage portion of the stroller. Here's where the story gets interesting. When I went to close the front door I dropped the car keys.

Dropping the car keys is something I do often. Car keys, house keys, it doesn't matter, I drop them. This time was different since they fell into a storm drain.

Oh, no! Was my first thought. OK, to be truthful it was a little stronger, maybe a little closer to "Drats!" Or maybe even a little stronger. Just a little. I did just drop our only set of car keys into a storm drain, after all.

Fortunately the drain was chock full of leaves. I got down on my hands and knees and stuck my fingers in the almost wide enough slots. I wiggled my fingers, I willed my fingers to reach the keys. Finally I gave a little push and plop, my hand went in the grate. I reached the keys!

Unfortunately I couldn't grasp the keys and pull my hand out at the same time so I had to stick my left hand in the grate, but just the fingers and I was able to grab the keys from my right hand and put them in my purse. Now I all I had to do was pull my hand out of the grate and get away from the stinky storm drain.

That's all. Pull my hand out.

I pulled expecting it to come out with the same ease with which my hand went in.

Nope. It was going to require a little more effort to get my hand out.

I pulled a little harder.

Nothing.

I pulled a little harder.

Nothing other than some scraping on my wrist.

I pulled a lot harder.

Nothing but the sensation of my hand trying to separate at the wrist. Not a good feeling.

Before I panicked I thought, am I going to have to call the fire department? How are they going to get my hand out of an iron storm drain cover? They would have to weld it out. Before calling the fire department I thought I should try to check my purse for lotion to lube my hand.

I didn't look for the lotion because I had my best idea yet. I pulled up with my left hand the skin on my right hand that was sticking right above the grate and with some scraping my hand was freed. My skin was bunching up under the grate causing a little bump that was keeping me lodged in the storm drain.

If that little trick didn't work I would have been up a creek because I didn't have any lotion in my purse and I wouldn't have been able to reach the glove box or the middle console. At least my phone was handy otherwise I would have had to yell for someone to help me.

So, there it is. The story that almost was the most embarrassing day of my life but instead is just embarrassing enough to make a good story and not enough to send me to therapy.