I am now a Facebook friend with a beautiful, fun, special woman who I met when she was 4 years old, and had the wonderful pleasure of watching grow up. Birthday parties. Graduation parties. A beautiful bride. Now a Mommy to 3 precious children, and expecting her 4th in February.

On her Facebook page this morning, she wrote about her 2-year old accidentally dialing 911. Police officers showing up at her door. Ah… good times.

This made me smile. Actually, I laughed. I know. I know. What if there had been a real emergency somewhere in town…

But it also reminded me that some things never change.

My little experience with police officers bursting into my home (from the same little town, I might add) happened almost 28 years ago. Oh, I do hope that these officers have retired somewhere nice and warm… where this story can be told anonymously.

It was a winter early evening. Jane was a few months old. She was teething. Very badly. My husband had gone to our local YMCA to play basketball. Audrey was begging for crayons and a coloring book.

Flashback to earlier in the day. I had had a very humorous discussion with a bunch of female teaching colleagues earlier in the week about Playgirl magazine. Now I don’t remember the details, but I do remember one of these gals bringing me in a copy of Playgirl as a little joke.

OK.

I tucked it in my school bag. You know, the bag with all of the papers I had to correct that evening. The bag ended up in my house. In my living room. Where Audrey was begging for crayons and a coloring book.

Back to early evening. Jane, my poor little darling, was getting more and more distressed with her poor little teeth, so I did something that I didn’t feel comfortable doing… but that everyone had recommended. Swibak cookies. I hated these things because they were supposed to be nice and hard and yet easy to chew. They scared me. I have always been (still am) afraid of kids choking. Well, I gave Jane a cookie to chew on. Within seconds, she was choking. I did all the choking things. Nothing.

I called the police department. I called the YMCA.

Within seconds, two young police officers were bursting through my door.

Also at that very second, Jane burped up a gummy pile of Swibak cookie.

And my husband came tearing though the door just in time to see it.

Ah… Relief. Calm. I could breathe again.

Except for the fact that Audrey had taken the Playgirl magazine from my school bag. And was meticulously coloring the men. Particularly their “parts.” Just humming a little song and using those crayons like there was no tomorrow.

I saw that my husband saw her. I saw that the police officers saw her.

I wanted to disappear.

So, hey. I didn’t try to explain. I just saw my husband trying to kick the “coloring book” under the couch while Audrey continued to color. I just held my little Janie and held my breath ’til the police officers were confident that all was well at the Couto household.

All was well? After I explained the story of the Playgirl and the Swibak and the frantic 911 call and the “coloring book” to my husband… well, we just laughed. We are still laughing.

But my husband has always wondered what those two young police officers thought about his wife as they headed back to real emergencies…

So. 911. Thank God that these two stories were not. Real emergencies, that is.