Opinion : Gentlemen: Never forget your mistakes!

There are important lessons we men learn in life. One of the single most important is that no matter what it is your significant other does, you might need to keep your big, fat mouth shut about it, because there is probably a pretty good chance you've done something dumber.

One of my past mistakes, which actually absolves my wife of a multitude of errors in life, occurred just about a month over nine years ago. Ah yes, I remember it well.....

(Gradual fade to flashback...)

Our son, Sage was born on November 13, 2002 at Providence Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, about 20 miles from our home in Leavenworth. He joined us on a Wednesday afternoon, and by Friday, he and his lovely mother were ready to leave Providence to head for home.

We were up in the hospital room, finishing checking out and packing our stuff up. I had took the bags down to our 1996 Nissan Pathfinder (ah, how I miss that). They nurses were supposed to be bringing Angie and Sage down, so I pulled up to the front door to wait.

It was a chilly early evening, so I had the heat cranked up. After about 10 minutes and no sign of my new family, I thought there might be a delay. And here is where my boo-boo began...

We weren't supposed to just leave an unattended, parked vehicle in the front of the hospital, and I didn't want to shut the heater off. So I decided to leave it running. But seeing how this was Kansas City, Kansas, I figured it should be locked. And since the Pathfinder had a keyless entry button on the key ring, I figured, "No problem; I'll just lock it and we'll get back in with the keyless entry."

I ran back up to the fifth floor, and arrived just as the nurse was about to bring Angie and Sage down. We rode back down together, excited for our first night at home with our new baby. My parents were waiting for us there, and Mom already had dinner in the oven.

We got to the lobby, the nurse wheeled Angie and Sage out to the Pathfinder, and I pushed the "unlock" button.

In retrospect, I probably should have tested my theory before actually doing it for real. What I quickly discovered was that with the doors locked and the engine running, the keyless entry didn't work; something about safety, I later learned. So, we were locked out.

And, since we had left in such a hurry in the dawn hours of Wednesday, it never occurred to me to have Angie's keys with us. They were safely back in Leavenworth, 20 miles away. So, I did what any red-blooded American male would do in a similar situation: I called my Mommy!

As I mentioned earlier, my parents were at our house. They had driven down the day before, anxious to see their first grandchild (after 45 years of waiting). So I called and told Mom what happened, After she stopped laughing at me, I asked her if she could bring me Angie's keys. Dad stayed behind to watch dinner in the oven. I gave her the directions and we waited. And waited. And waited.

It should have taken Mom about a half-hour to get to Providence. After 40 minutes, we were starting to get concerned. It turned out that in the gathering November darkness, Mom thought she had missed her turn, so she turned west on Parallel Parkway into the little town of Basehor. Frantic, she went into a 7-Eleven, told our story and asked for directions to the hospital. A very kind person, who just happened to be heading that way, led her back down Parallel right to Providence, where we sat waiting.

I unlocked the Pathfinder, we piled into the warmest vehicle in Kansas that night and led a two-car motorcade safely back to our house.

(Gradual fade back to the present!)

We all make little mistakes in life. We all make big ones. But we always need to remember our past errors, especially if we ever feel the need to tease our better halves about theirs. Angie will still have to go some to top mine!