Nell's expensive gift

Devin and I rarely do presents outside of birthdays and Christmas. Occasionally I will get him something for Father's Day, an anniversary or Valentines but that is the exception, not the norm. Given this background - you will understand why the gift I received today - either for British Mothering Sunday or St. Patrick's Day, take your pick - was so far out of our typical price range I was blown away. But not really in a good way.

What did Devin get me you ask? A one year membership to RAC!!! RAC is a car breakdown coverage. No, our car did not break down...but our baby did lock the car with our only set of keys in her lap just before church today. This took place at about 9:45. Devin took Nell out to the car first and allowed her to play with the keys. He shut her car door, headed in to get Jonas and walked back out to find the car doors locked. After a minute of trying to persuade Nell to keep pushing buttons in hopes that she would unlock the car (which only resulted in her crying), we started looking online and through the yellow pages for a locksmith.

I called 4 in a row who informed me that they didn't work on cars. I tried a few more, no luck. Devin took over a called some more. Finally success!! Someone would be there within 30 minutes. By now Nell was still screaming and Clara was sobbing. I tried to calm Clara (pretty unsuccessfully) and Nell finally fell asleep. Now would be a good time to inform you that it was by no means hot enough for this to be dangerous - I promise!!

After about 15 minutes the phone rang. The locksmith informed us that his van would not start and left us with no other ideas. We then called the police who informed us they would break the window but that was it. We were getting near this point but since this is our one car and having it in the shop would be difficult, we preferred to find a better solution. We tried a local garage - no luck. We kept calling around to absolutely no success. FINALLY someone agreed to come but they would be 1.5 hours still. At this point Nell had been in there for 1 hour. We kept calling and found success with the RAC. We'd have to sign up for a membership and because the incident occurred within 1/4 mile of our house we had to get the house and car coverage - bringing the total from 140 pounds to 203 pounds. Terrific! They came within 30 minutes - at about 11:45 (yes, two hours later). Nell woke up about 10 minutes before they got there and began crying again so at this point it seemed like money well spent. It took Richard (Jonas made sure we knew his name) about 3 minutes to get her out and picking her up was the best part of my day so far. Chalk this up to an interesting difference between the UK and the US. I was surprised at how few locksmiths there are that are willing to work on cars. Here's a cute picture of Nell from this weekend. I hope she enjoys the membership she instigated - but that we won't ever need it again.


And do you know what I'm doing tomorrow? Heading to the key shop to get a second car key made!