Yesterday Amos and I got impossibly stuck in a deadly and disgusting mud pit at Macarthur Park and had to be rescued by a terrified Asian man who spoke hardly any English. Well, he didn’t seem to when he met us, but he walked away knowing the words “help us please,” “big stick” and “PULL!”

The terrible scene unfolded before an apathetic audience of incapacitated crackheads, a criminally negligent dog-walker, and about a hundred of those disgusting geese with warty Chernobyl faces. But it’s not their fault. It all transpired after I made a series of terrible decisions. I made bad choices, okay?

Let’s blame it on springtime and sunshine. Amos and I drive by Macarthur Park pretty much every day on our way home, and yesterday a gnarly rooster-faced goose (a gooster?) waddled out in front of us on the road, refusing to let us pass. I took that, along with the beckoning daffodils, as signs that we should get out and see some sights.

Amos and I scraped and scooped all the crushed goldfish crackers up from the car seat and floorboards and threw handfuls to our adoring, honking crowd. We pretended everything was dandy despite a pack of elementary-aged kids a few feet away that was chasing the ducks and hissing at them in a threatening and terrifying way. Sadly, I couldn’t come to the ducks’ defense because the kids’ mother was there, egging them on. Seriously. Between our salvaged snack offerings and the Jeffrey Dahmer training camp going on next to us, it was already the most ghetto trip to the park ever.

The ducks eventually scooted away when the snack supply dried up, so Amos zipped over to a gigantic hole that must have once been a pond but is now nothing but a death trap. Before I could grab him back he was trucking across the slick but seemingly solid mud slab. “Oh no…Oh, Amos, be careful…Oh, oh…” My strategy at this point was to cajole him back to solid ground, and it was working fine. Until his shoe fell off and he started crying. Then he fell and his hand got dirty. Then he refused to move. Folks, I had to go in.

Amos was not sinking in any way, so perhaps I was overconfident. The problem, of course, is that there’s an enormous difference between Amos’ spritely little 28-pound body and my own. As soon as I had Amos snatched up safely in my arms, the mud pit chomped down on my feet, sucking me in up to my knees. And I couldn’t move. Moment of terror, cue foreboding music here.

My first priority was to keep cool so Amos didn’t sense that I was freaking out. There was no choice but to pull out the weird mommy maneuver of plastering a psycho wide-eyed grin on my face and singing, “We’re okaaaaay, we’re okaaaay. Ha ha ha! We’re stuck in the mud! Wheee!”

Then I started screaming for help.

A man in a windsuit walking by with his miniature Doberman showed no interest in being a superhero. He initially refused to even come close, but the young girl he was walking with put in a good word for us. “Why’d you get in there for?” he yelled at me. “It’s not my fault you let your kid get in the mud.” He came a bit closer and looked like he was considering lending a hand, but it was clear he was going to wuss when his feet got wet. Thank you, sir. I hope you drown in a septic tank.

At least now I had a legitimate reason to call 911. Guaranteed embarrassment, but also the promise of handsome firemen coming to my rescue. I’d pressed the 9 when I spotted that poor, poor man strolling by, only about 15 feet away.

“Can you help me!?!? Please?” By now I am a swamp creature, a shrieking monster with two heads, four arms and only two legs, all of it covered in mud.

“Okay.” He said okay! He looks unsure, possibly terrified, but he doesn’t scold me or scamper away. I am saved.

Luckily there was a long tree branch within my reach, and Mr. Fantastic Rescue Man grabbed one end while I clutched Amos with one arm and pulled with the other. My right elbow dug into the mud as I held Amos on my left hip and tried with all my might to escape. There were two giant sluuuuuurrps and we were free! Free! Free! As I thanked my mysterious and silent guardian angel, I noticed his docksiders were still clean and dry. Was he even real? He walked away without a word.

Amos and I beelined back to the car, shedding shoes and socks along the way. I swabbed Amos head to toe with all the baby wipes I could find, while he provided running commentary. “Dirty! Dirty! Stuck in the mud!”

We are alive, I thought. Thank God I didn’t have to throw Amos to safety and bid farewell to this planet in such a horrendous and humiliating way.

Survival firmly in hand, I looked to the future. The very near future when I could dump these ruined clothes in the garbage. A future of making better choices. A future free of goosters and sticky mud pits, because we will never, ever set foot in that park again.

Then I called my husband.

“Um, could you run us a bath?”

So if my story below about the poor man who’s consumed with guilt over his misguided search for a better life in North Korea (I know, duh) isn’t depressing enough, go over to In the Family Way and get your pants scared right off of you by the story about the deadly dangers of all of your kids’ favorite foods. Maybe it caused panic to set in only because I was already freaking about that article in the New York Times this morning about how I nearly killed my child and probably caused developmental delays because he had a walker. So this choking story is throwing me into action. No more grapes unless they’re sliced. I admit, I’m guilty of slacking on this in the past, but no more. If DHS reads this post they will take Amos away, clearly I’ve been screwing up left and right.

But I promise with all my heart, no more peanut butter unless it’s a tissue-thin layer mixed with a soggy glob of slippery jam. Peanuts, M&Ms, hot dogs=no, no, no. Not at all. None. I know it’s really good to know this stuff and it was a true public service for Heidi to provide the paralyzing statistics behind the conventional wisdom, but it got the nerves jangling overtime. Amos was having chicken nuggets for lunch. Oh my god chicken nuggets! I will likely put all his entrees in the blender first until I can calm down a bit.

This story about a fatal shark attack has nothing to do with motherhood, except perhaps to serve as a reminder to never take your children to Florida. Or if you do, stay inland.