I really got crazy this morning (after my night at the grocery store) and stopped by the bank to deposit a check for a truly hellish freelance assignment I took so I could pay off a credit card I never should have signed up for. I’m sort of scared of the ATM (have you noticed how they now post a sign that says “cover your pin number when you enter it”? how are you supposed to do that? and I don’t want to know why, Ray says it has to to do with gypsies. I do LOVE gypsies and also stories about people who are discovered to have their own twin somewhere in their body, but that’s for another day) so I actually parked and walked into the bank, but the line was too long so I went to the ATM.

But this is not about that. This about how, as I took the the corner to turn into the bank, my heart leapt up into my mouth. I heard a baby cry from the back seat, and not just any baby’s cry — this was a tortured baby, calling for its Mama in a pitiful voice.

My babies haven’t really been babies in years — even considering Sophie’s development and the fact that she insists on being called Baby most of the time, either that or Puppy or Kitty or PuppyKitty — so I don’t know why I got scared. (Particularly since this was, oh, the dozenth time I’ve heard that cry in the past few days as I’ve taken a sharp corner.) Well, yes, I do know why I got scared.

I’m terrified I’ll forget one of my kids in the car.

Don’t say you’ve never thought about it. That reminds me of an old story my mom tells, about her her dermatologist once said to her, “Look, there are two kinds of people. Pickers and liars.” I love that line. Love it.

I haven’t done the research to be sure, but I’d be willing to bet that Phoenix is the capital of “let your kid bake to death in a hot car”. It just happened this week, someone spotted a baby left in a car. I know it’s tempting, leaving your kid while you run into Walgreen’s, but first, if I may be so crass, that’s super-white trash. And second, in Phoenix, you’ll kill your kid. That baby lived, but only because someone saw it and tattled.

The saddest part is that the baked baby stories don’t get much play in the media. It’s the baked police dog stories that everyone goes for. (Again, a discussion for another day.)

Back to the sound from the back of my car. It’s a doll, I’m sure you figured that out already. Here’s what it looked like, when I opened the door to take a look:

Ray bought this little sweetheart (I want to learn how to link sound to this thing, only so you can hear the CREEEEPY baby sounds) at Fiesta Mall (that’s a tidbit for the locals) last week. Sophie picked it out. It goes with her, oh, I don’t know, 500 other baby dolls. But none are quite like this one. (The packaging’s long gone, so I can’t warn you off the brand name, but a friend did mention she saw a big row of them at Target last week — you sweep your hand over them and they all moan and cry and whine, “Mama Mama Mama”.)

She wound up on the floor of my car, where everything winds up. What I need to do is take her the f#*% out of my car (I have to rate this blog PG, since I gave the URL to my mother in law yesterday) and pitch her in a basket in the playroom, so she can haunt me late at night when I get up for a benadryl.

Or maybe (to quote my dear friend DHSS, who once wrote a memorable piece about guinea pigs), you’d like her?