I HATE Automatic Locks

As I have mentioned previously before, we are now a minivan family.  One of the "lovely" features of my minivan is automatic door locking.  Specifically, when we go to get into the car, all of the doors automatically lock when the last door is shut.  This sounds harmless enough, right?  This morning, I put all of the kids in the car to bring Eli to his preschool program.  I had already locked up the house as we were pretty much ready to leave.  I placed my keys and my cell phone on the passenger seat and proceeded to get all the kids in the car.  After placing Iris in, without thinking about it, I closed the door before opening the door to the driver's seat.  Just as the doors closed, I heard it, that familiar click, the doors locked shut.  I was locked out of my house, out of my car, with no phone, and all three kids were locked inside the van.  I started to panic.  It is warm today, and this morning at 9:00 it had already reached 70 degrees.  I tried to talk Eli through unlocking his car seat buckle, but that was to no avail.  I had to run to a neighbor's house to use a phone and call Jesse.  He left immediately from work to come home and let me in to the car.  I was so afraid that the kids would get too hot.  I started to fear that I was about to become one of those mommies who bakes their children in the car.  I know this is an overreaction, but it was terrifying to not be able to help my kids.  Of course, if it had gotten much warmer, I would have just broken the window.

Just as I thought I could not stand it any longer, Jesse drove into the driveway and saved us all.  These automatic door locks seem like a real hazard to me.