You know that episode of "Lost" where Desmond screws with the space/time continuum just by crossing the ocean?

I'm pretty sure we screwed up the parent/child dimension by reversing door knobs.

So the toddler was tucked in, and locked in, for her own safety until we can get her to kick the midnight roaming habit. Randy went to his office to get some work done; I went downstairs to watch ... (wait for it) ... TV, secure in the knowledge that we had switched the inside door lock to the outside, that our traveler would be grounded until the morning. No gates, no knob covers, just a screwdriver. That's all it took.

Ha, ha, ha! Cue the maniacal laughter. What fools!

Here she comes, padding down the steps, a vision in her light blue footie PJs with white puffy clouds and sheepies all over. Prison uniforms are so cute these days.

"Hi Mommy."

"Uh, hi baby," I said, looking at my pint-sized Houdini with remarkable calm, given that she was COMPLETELY LOCKED IN HER ROOM 10 MINUTES EARLIER.

Where will the madness end, people? I ask you: Where?

"Did Daddy let you out?" I asked her.

"No, I play with my doll house." And off she went to pretend she was the mommy in her Loving Family Twins Dollhouse. (Or is it a townhouse? Dolls are so chic and urban these days, it's hard to keep up.)

Meanwhile, I called Randy on the intercom upstairs, all business-like, and told him we had a jail-break situation. "Nooo," he groaned. "How is that even possible?" He went in to inspect the escape site, and as I listened to the thumping and pounding noises coming from MJ's room upstairs -- was he kicking the crap out of the door as punishment? I didn't know -- I considered what might be causing this hair-pulling behavior. Behavior that, as I looked at the mommy doll's appearance, I realized was starting to affect even the sanity of MJ's pretend parents.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Could this be happening because my child is about 65 percent organic these days, since I got scared into switching to hormone-free dairy foods to ward off early puberty and hence, early dating? (I will, indeed, pay $12 a gallon for milk if it means less trouble for me a decade from now.) Kids can be a little OCD sometimes; maybe she's taking the whole cage-free thing a little too far.

TWHACK! TWHACK! TWHACK!

Before I had a chance to conjure any more ridiculous notions, MJ stopped playing, became wide-eyed, and said, "Mommy, that noise ... what is it? It's scary."

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

"Oh, honey, it's nothing. It's just Daddy. He's trying to fix your door."

She wasn't convinced. "I go up and see," she said.

"OK, dear," I said, the way you do when someone is being naive and cute, "you go help Daddy."

I heard her little footsteps stop at her door. And then I heard her crying, and this:

"I can't get in! Daddy, help! I can't get in!"

"I know!" came the reply from the other side of her door, "I can't get out!"

My husband, ladies and gentlemen: beaten at his own game by a toddler. Locked in by his own lock, a lock that could not contain a three-year-old. Was I rolling on the floor with laughter? Yes, yes I was. For a prolonged period of time, I might add. But in my mind, I was already putting bars on the windows.