So I was leaving my mother-in-law’s house yesterday to pick up Kelly from a wedding shower she had been attending. I had little Troy Boy with me inside the MIL’s house, and I had set him in his car seat for safe keeping. After I had packed up his diaper bag and loaded up the car, I went back inside and grabbed the car seat (with Troy) and snapped it into the base station in the back seat of my Tacoma.

Fast forward 30 minutes. We had just pulled into Kelly’s dad’s place in West Sacramento to say hi. The whole family were all outside shooting guns and doing tequila body shots, so we knew it was going to be a mellow, uneventful visit. Grandpa Lee came over to say hello. I hopped out to grab Troy from his car seat, and when I opened the back door, what did I see? Little Troy, unbuckled, slumped over and almost sideways across the width of his seat. It seems that in my haste to pack everything up and hit the road, I forgot to do the most basic of security checks and ensure that my little boy was securely strapped into his car seat. Sadly, he was not.

Lucky for me, it was a very uneventful drive out to Lee’s house. Things could have been so much worse, even if it were only a minor fender bender.

This episode prompted Lee to tell us about another father who was far more absent-minded than me. Lee used to be a CHP officer, so he has all kinds of crazy stories about dealing with The General Public. This particular time, a father had strapped his kid into his car seat. While unlocking the car door, he set the car seat on the roof of the car. Amazingly, he somehow forgot about the child as he climbed into the car, and took off driving. At about 60 MPH, the wind finally blew the car seat off the top of the car. Fortunately for all involved, the car seat hit the ground and slid along right-side-up until it came to a halt. Lee says that the obviously distraught father ran as fast as he could to the car seat, anticipating the worst case scenario. What did he find instead? A happily smiling baby who had just enjoyed the ride of his life.

Moral of the story? When transporting small humans (midgets excluded), check, double check, and then triple-secret double check once more that the little one is securely fastened to the car seat, and that said car seat is securely belted down inside the automobile. Measure twice, cut once.

Whatever.

Just be careful, jackass. A child is a terrible thing to waste.

(Editor’s note: no children (or midgets) were harmed in the writing of this post.)