What's Your Emergency?
Adventures in calling 911
It was a beautiful evening in Los Angeles. The heat of the day was gently dissipating. The air was clear and not as buggy as it’s been this summer. It was green– unseasonably green– due to the city’s freak tropical storm rains last week. Butterflies, not wanting to let the day go, lilted and circled with an ease reflecting the unexpected abundance of flowers.
And my almost-two-year-old daughter was screaming at the top of her lungs.
This is a fairly regular occurrence. Juniper just isn’t a good sleeper. We’ve tried everything; I’ve accepted that I birthed a baby that hated going to sleep, and now she’s a toddler that hates going to sleep. That’s how I was as a kid; I am now being put through the ordeal I put my own mother through. The circle of life.
I’d been puttering around my garden boxes, dealing with my moth problem by spraying my plants down with an organic gardening substance that the beponytailed man at the plant nursery told me would “make the moths crap until they die.” I was listening to a podcast about the three trials of Fatty Arbuckle. I was pretty relaxed. My daughter’s yelling permeated my headphones.
I know Juniper’s various cries pretty well. This was not a cry of real pain or distress; it was her level 10 Fake Cry. Still, once she gets to that point of agitation, it’s pointless and mean to leave her in her room. She will not settle down on her own, without a hard factory reset. Time to get her out of bed, a quick diaper check, hold her for a little while, read her a book about dinosaurs, make up a lie about how we can’t watch Bluey right now because Bluey’s asleep, and then try again to put her down. I washed my hands in the kitchen sink and told her to wait, because I’d be right there.
But when I went to open her bedroom door, the knob wouldn’t turn.
Juniper continued to scream, helpfully reaching over the side of the crib and smacking the door.
And that’s when it dawned on me that if she can reach the door, then she can probably reach the the doorknob. And if she can reach the doorknob, she can reach the lock. And if she can reach the lock… oh no.
I read somewhere that it’s important to explain what you’re doing to toddlers, even if they can’t really articulate what they want or how they feel. “Honey, the door is stuck. I’m going to try to turn it again.”
Screams. I heard her chucking all of her stuffed animals out of her crib and onto the floor like a little Zeus with bolts of lightning.
I wrestled with the knob, hoping that it was one of those poor-quality locks you can force open. No dice.
But still I wasn’t too worried. Surely it wouldn’t be difficult to pick the lock myself. I’d seen it done before with a bobby pin.
I said, through the door, “Sweetheart, I’m finding a video that will help me open the door. I’m trying, okay?”
Through tears, she replied “I’m sorry!”
She has started saying “I’m sorry!” a lot, especially when she’s crying. That’s probably because I often say that to her when she’s upset, and at this age most of her personality is copying things she’s seen me do. But the sound of a toddler saying “I’m sorry!” while crying is a lot to handle, emotionally. I already felt like a shitty mom for not preventing this from happening in the first place.
I found a video that looked like it could help. Why do YouTube videos take so fucking long to get to the point? Are these videos made for Martians? CAN YOU JUST TELL ME HOW TO DO THE THING? I spent what felt like thirty-eight minutes of a narrator overexplaining the parts of a doorknob while Juniper continued her very sad yell-crying before he got to the information I needed. Looked easy enough. But it didn’t work.
Starting to get desperate, I went to our drawer of random keys (everybody’s got a drawer of random keys) and grabbed a few that I thought might work. None did.
I went outside to see if I’d forgotten to lock a window and could break in that way, but of course I hadn’t.
As a last resort, I crouched down and started speaking to Juniper through the door. “Honey, you are locked in your room. I think you accidentally turned the lock. Can you turn the lock again?” I jiggled the knob. She hit the knob and yelled I’M SORRY. It was worth a shot.
Josh wasn’t home; he was out at birthday drinks for one of his friends. There was no way to get into the room.
I didn’t know what else to do but call 911.
The mortifying phone conversation went something like this.
“911 Dispatch.”
“Hi, I’m sorry in advance for this stupid call. My two year old locked herself in her bedroom. She’s safe and in her crib but I can’t get in there.”
“I’ll transfer you to the fire department.”
“Fire dispatch.”
“Hi, I’m sorry, this is so stupid, but my daughter locked herself in her bedroom and I can’t get in there. She’s almost 2. She’s safe in her crib but I need help getting into her room. If you guys have some fires to put out or whatever you should do that first. I’m so sorry for wasting your time. My address is… ”
Within minutes, probably six firemen were staring at the locked door. I kept apologizing for calling them for such a silly problem when they have bigger emergencies to handle, but the one who seemed to be in charge assured me that they handle calls like this at least once a shift. Sometimes more than once. One of the firemen volunteered that his three-year-old needed the fire department to help get his hand unstuck from a toy.
The fireman in charge had the littlest fireman force the door off with a mallet-type implement. The little one looked about 15 years old, but since I hit 37 or so, everybody under 25 years old has looked 15 years old to me. He was proud of himself when he got the knob off. It was cute.
Once the door swung open, Juniper looked surprised to see a team of firemen standing there and immediately stopped crying. “Uh oh!” she said, pointing to the busted knob.
“These are firemen, honey. They helped open your door. It’s okay!”
“Do you want to see a firetruck?” the one in charge asked.
Of fucking course she wanted to see a firetruck. She was wearing firetruck pajamas.
“FIRETRUCK!” she chirped, nodding and pointing to her pajamas.
“I’m sorry again,” I said.
I stood on the porch holding Juniper as she waved at each of the firemen as they got back into their truck. As it drove away, she pointed after it and said, “más truck?”
No, sweetheart. No más truck.
To the littlest fireman’s credit, the door itself sustained very little damage. The knob, however, is toast.
Now, there’s a hole where the knob once was, and I’ve gone around the rest of the house making sure there aren’t any other interior doors that inexplicably have lockable exterior knobs installed on them.
Let this be a warning, parents: your home is teeming with silly reasons to call the fire department. Your child is one bedtime tantrum away from leading you to discover one.
These calls are honestly always the best. It's fun being helpful when it's not life or death but still impactful.
Also, I once had a call b/c a (20 something [as was I]) newlywed couple's kitten was stuck under the fridge of the house they just moved into. They were very distressed. "We didn't know what else to do!"
I lifted the corner of the fridge with one hand while simultaneously reaching under the fridge to grab the adorable and thankful little kitten with the other.
The husband was mortified. I felt bad and realized I should have made it seem much more of a problem.
People don't realize refrigerators are actually very light. Especially empty ones.
Tip: there is a little tool that will unlock doors. It’s like a flat key thing that’s universal. I keep it on top of at least two doors at any given time. That way if one disappears, there’s still another.