I Saved My Kid's Life!!
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 9:13PM Our family has officially perfected the ability to never lose one another in public. As I write this I’m realizing how blatantly I’ve now pissed off the jinx yourself gods.
In the movie Robots, there’s a scene where the two main characters crash a party to try and talk to Big Weld. Before going in they agree to scream “Cuh Caw” is one or the other person needs help. And there our family safety words were born.
At first it was a kind of a joke. I was at the store and my wife and daughter got separated from my son and me. So I loudly screamed “Cuh Caw!!” Immediately my son copied me and started loudly calling “Cuh Caw!!” Five minutes later the entire store wanted us dead and we found the other half of the family. The wife….annoyed as shit. The daughter…..jealous she missed out on the screaming and quickly made up for it by yelling “Cuh Caw!!” for the next 20 minutes.
My wife is a huuuuuge wanderer. If I blink a split second longer than I should, she’s gone. So this extremely handy calling has come in handy many, many times. In fact, here’s a list of a few of them:
Jewel Osco The Park
The Field Museum During Sex
Target On Bike Rides
Downtown Downers Grove On the Metra
Our House Shedd Aquarium
Noodles & Company Wrigley Field
cuh caw from Why Is Daddy Crying on Vimeo.
You get the drift. But this past weekend I saw that while hearing my kids scream Cuh Caw throughout a store is annoying for everyone except me, it’s also a damn fine safety feature.
We were in Target. My wife was 20 yards ahead of me, I was keeping an eye on her while holding the boy’s hand, and glancing behind me to keep an eye on the girl who was lagging. I noticed my four-year-old daughter had lost site of us and was looking around with a worried look on her face trying to spot us.
Immediately she put her hands up to her mouth and yelled “Cuh Caw, Cuh Caw!!”
The crisis was quickly overted, but a lesson was learned. Despite my wife's constant bitching of how I'm ruining our kids lives, I actually saved one that day. Kinda like Saving Private Ryan....or...something. Whatever - all I know is....when anyone in this fam hear's "Cuh Caw".....we alll come running.
*as a side note, if you know us and see us out in public - please don't fuck with us by yelling "Cuh Caw".....we'd be up shit's creek for sure....
Thanks!
Reader Comments (5)
Our call is BOO WHOP -- drawing out the boooooooo and giving the whop a little whip. Works like a charm.
I am so proud of you!!! lol. And its our jobs as wives to look annoyed, but believe me. She secretly watches from beyond the clothes racks while a small smile totally in love cause you care.
Hilarious - we have a call in our family as well that has been passed down from my grandparents. It is a very distinctive "Wooo-ooooo" and can be heard from the deepest corners of the mall. We might look absurd to others but when we hear it, we know someone from our clan is in distress.
I yell BOO! That scares some people but it comes from Monster's Inc. I started calling my husband Kitty and he started calling me Boo but then I thought that a six foot four man built like a brick shithouse should not be called Kitty and so we both call each other Boo.
It can be a lot of fun in public.
Halloween must be a real confusing time for you both.....