How To Make Ikea More Exciting

On Friday, Sarah & I took Amoryn to Ikea for the first time. There was lots of exciting.
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We were a small caravan - Am & I in the Jeep (carseat friendly), Sarah in her truck (shelf-loading friendly).
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Ikea, is of course, very exciting in & of itself. Where else in the world can you get a 50 cent hot dog & a shelf named Udovar, designed by a Swede, built in Lithuania from recyled banana peels?
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I needed a couple things, & ended up with tow rugs, some shelves, a big old cookie jar, & various Ikea odds & sods. Low-grade excitement.
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Sarah got an Expedit shelving unit (three boxes! oi!), and some other little boxy units. More exciting - her living room, yea it shall be reclaimed from the high tide of clutter.
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Amoryn looked around, had a bottle, and napped. She was very good-humored about the part where we had to unload everything in the back of Sar's truck to fit the new Ikea stuff in, and she cooed happily to the dark, empty parking lot.
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We'd driven from the back forty of the parking lot over to the store so Sar could get her last three boxes.
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This is when Ikea got terribly exciting. And I mean terrible.
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We accidentally locked Amoryn into the car.* Keys in the ignition. Vehicle running. Amoryn getting increasingly pissed about being stuck in the car.
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Sarah & I promptly lost our minds. We ran around the car trying the doors & pawing at the windows like we were junkie squirrels after some heroin peanuts inside the car. My cell phone was a) dead & b) inside the car anyways, so thank goodness that Sar had hers. We scraped together enough focus to figure we should call someone.
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"AMA? Oh my god, I don't have my card, what's their number..."
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"Maybe we should break the window? Oh my god, but she's looking at us, & I don't want to get glass in her face.."
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"Call Pat, oh my god. " In my frenzied state, I figured a cool, calm, collected man-brain might have a suggestion.
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Pat was downtown, so it would take like, an hour & a half for him to get to Ikea with the spare keys. He had no suggestions.
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We tried to get AMA's number. Information was No Help At All.
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We said screw it, & called 911.
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"Yes, we've locked the baby in the car. The car is running. The baby is safely secured and while seriously pissed off, is in no distress. Yes, the car is running. Yes, the baby is fine. She couldn't be screaming that loud if she wasn't fine."
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"They're sending the fire department. Oh my god."
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Pat calls back - call the fire department, he says - they do it for free. Done & done. Although I would gladly re-mortgage the house, to get my poor mad baby out of the car.
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Sirens start. Oh my god.
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Sirens drawing closer.
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Really loud sirens. And flashy lights.
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"Look baby, there's a fire truck! There's another fire truck! Thank god!"
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Six firemen & two firetrucks later, they jimmied the car open. As soon as the firemen clustered around the car, Amoryn stopped screaming in rage and watched with fascination.
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The captain was very nice, & talked to me about how his boys used to lock themselves in all the time. "Monkeys!", he chuckled.
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I tried not to dissolve into tears of relief & gratitude. (Sar said the same thing.) Amoryn was gooing & blinking & smiling at all the nice firemen in their reflective gear. I should've been more coherent & said thank you & found out what station they were at so I could take them some cookies, but all I could do was clutch at my completely unconcerned daughter & the car keys. Thank god it was not 30 above, or 30 below, and it was dark out. We called Pat twice to let him know Amoryn was out & fine.
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We then drove to the downtown core, so that the man could see that the baby was okay.
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The parking was ABYSMAL, but the baby was adorable & charmed all of his conference people. Then she fell asleep.
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Then we ordered pizza & went home.
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The End. Except that I'm going to get a set of car keys surgically implanted into my wrist.
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*- If you promise to be non-judgemental, & call, I will tell you the story.