This tale begins on Saturday morning at approximately 9:30 a.m. Middle G and Little G. are off with me to Little G.'s swim lessons.

Regular readers will remember just how much I loathe swim lessons.

Little G. is still swimming level three with Crazy Eye. I should note that I'm most likely going to hell for calling his teacher Crazy Eye. But alas, that is another tale.

As indicated in previous posts, while my son loves to swim, he doesn't necessary like to do the elementary backstroke. There is no chance that he will make the Olympic swim team and I'm okay with that.

Crazy Eye hates me.

I'm not exactly sure when I realized that she hated me, but it is quite obvious. Even my 8 1/2 year says things like "Did you make the swim teacher mad?"

After three straight weeks of Little G doing nothing but crying at swim lesson (Did I mention that I pay for these) I decided to bribe him with a trip to the dollar store. A trip he has been dreaming of taking since my dad sent him $5.00 for Easter.

"Don't cry, do you best and we will go to the dollar store."

He hugged me. He did his best. He didn't cry. He kept up with all those big kids who need only to kick one time and they've crossed the entire pool.

Crazy Eye noticed the improvement.

At the end of the class she said "Wow, Little G. did so much better today. He seems to have gotten over his hump."

Since I'm a firm believer in Say what you mean and mean what you say I said, "It's probably because I bribed him."

Expecting a chuckle or a possible bonding moment, instead Crazy Eye responded with "That's a shame" and walked away.

Just when I thought I couldn't dislike her more.

But alas our adventure was just beginning. I'm wearing this awesome pedometer and lately my dog has been getting more steps than me so I came up with the brilliant idea of taking the stairs.

In the stairwell was a new exit. Clearly marked EXIT. The door lead to the alleyway between the YWCA and the church parking lot that held our van.

It seemed like a no brainer to go out this door and head straight to the van.

Now I must admit to you that I was slightly taken back when the door shut behind us and it had no outside door handle, but still there was no alarm and what was the worse that could happen.

I'll tell you what can happen. You can get trapped by barbed wire fences in all directions. You can find nothing but padlocked exits. You can realize about four seconds too late that you may get trapped in the alley with your 8 and 6 year old in 80 plus degree weather without nary a drink.

Now Little G. could fit between the wall and the fence and desperately wanted to be Lassie and go for help but I wasn't that desperate. I mean he would have needed to punch in a five digit code to get back into the YWCA and then he would have had to find the stairwell we were trapped in all without being kidnapped which seemed as likely as a LOST plot.

So we waited.

We knocked on the door for awhile to no avail.

Soon our hero arrived.

No he wasn't some sexy guy fresh from the pool. He was the gay next door neighbor who decided to take a break from painting and come out on his deck.

He put a ladder over the fence and helped us all climb into his yard.

I'm very thankful he wasn't a serial killer.