To tell the rest of the story:
I think, re the car rental company, it was just one clueless twit who happened to be the one that answered the phone there. Can you just see the newspaper headline telling what he’d done? Can you imagine corporate headquarter’s reaction?
My first draft of yesterday’s post was indignant for a different reason, though: the tow truck driver had decided to come after all, had roared up fast behind the parked firetruck, and the guy had leaped out and run to the other side of the car with his own tool while the firemen were working at opening the passenger-side door, standing closer to the mom. The tow guy beat the fireman by less than a minute.
I noticed the fireman kept going at it till he too succeeded–he’d started the job for that woman and he was going to finish it.
The tow driver came over and whispered a hint at the fireman after both sides were open–the driver’s side works better and faster. Okay.
And then the tow guy waited till the firemen and I had left, which to me later meant so the young mom wouldn’t have the emotional support of the rest of us telling him he was out of line, because I saw him then approaching her door with a clipboard: his bill for her to sign.
When he had previously told a distraught mom he couldn’t help her, and when she was so obviously already being helped when he’d raced in.
So yes, the firemen opened the door without breaking the window. And they were wonderful to the mom and the baby.
The tow guy seemed embarrassed by her show of emotions, weeping as she at last reached for her crying son and held him close. Or maybe he was embarrassed at himself.
I was pretty indignant. But my husband came home just as I was typing up the original post and calmed me down by trying to present it from the tow truck driver’s point of view: he might have been tied up. And then he got this call. The mom was upset. A baby was locked in a car. That’s something he could do something about. He finished what he had going on as fast as he could and came running to help, sorry he’d said he wouldn’t, and the firemen weren’t succeeding so he stepped in and helped.
And if I were really kind (and a little more naive than I am), I’d believe that it was indeed all selflessness on his part rather than hoping not to be thwarted in grabbing a quick buck. Yeah, I wish… But I was grateful to Richard for reminding me not to judge and to look for the good in others. I thought that was my job!
Yeah right. Dang. The guy’s actions still annoy me. Maybe they shouldn’t. Eh.
But I was right when I sat down and wrote about how wonderful the firemen and firewoman were to the mom and her baby boy–that’s the real story. That’s the part that matters. They helped not only with the mechanics of the door lock, but to comfort two people who so much needed what they had to offer.