Brian at The Waldorf Astoria

We checked into the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, in NYC in 1995 for a stay, before moving to London on the QE2, with our two young children - one-year old Brian and three-year old Melissa. I headed to work, down in the Financial District, leaving my wife to take care of the two young children in the room. My wife was attending an event that evening and Brian was upset because she had turned off cartoons to get them ready.

Brian managed to find his way into the closet of the hotel room, which at that time locked from the inside. He somehow locked the door, while inside the closet. My wife called me, in a panic, that my 1-year old was locked in the closet and could not get out. She called the Front Desk, who called Security and they arrived to a frantic mother and a calm toddler in the darkened closet. Security repeatedly instructed Brian to turn the knob inside the closet, while my wife thought ‘How is a 1+ year-old going to understand how to turn the knob? Do they understand his age?’ Security just kept repeating instructions, while discussing removal of the hinges of the closet door. As my wife tried to keep Brian calm, (while hyperventilating and ready to cry), the door popped open and Brian was standing there nonplussed in the dark.