Locked-In

For a year or two the church Mom and Dad pastored in Wyoming met in one of the meeting rooms at a local library.  We were, as always, the first ones to arrive and the last ones to leave each Sunday.

One such Sunday Dad (and Jesse, too?) were accidentally locked inside the library. I don't remember any other church members being around, so I assume that this happened after the service when Dad was doing a final check to ensure that everything had been tidied and the doors were locked.

What I remember most about this adventure is Mom telling Aaron and me that Dad had been locked inside and that we needed help getting him out. I was just old enough to understand that many public buildings were fitted with alarms. I wondered what would happen if Dad triggered one of those alarms. Whatever the consequence, I assumed that it was so unspeakably horrible that to avoid it Dad and Jesse would have to sleep in the library that night and hope that one of the nice librarians decided to let them come home.

What actually happened was not quite so interesting. Men in uniforms - I believed them to be cops at the time, although I have no idea if that part of the memory is accurate - showed up after a time and released them.

I wonder now what those officers/security guards/passer-bys who just happened to be wearing cop-like uniforms thought of us. They obviously believed Dad's story as he wasn't in any sort of trouble. But what would it be like to receive a call from someone who said, "soon after we finished worshipping our God at the library (on the one day a week it's closed to the public) my husband was accidentally locked inside. Can you get him out again?"