Yesterday morning was interesting.
It was around 10am. I had just grabbed some McDonalds breakfast for my girlfriend and I, and I was driving up the hill and back towards her place with the food sitting on the passenger seat next to me. It was a murky morning. Drizzle was massaging its wet fingers into everything crack it could find and the mist was hanging around like a comforting old friend that had now overstayed their welcome. It was the perfect dreary scene for a 1970′s zombie film.
As I turned the corner I saw a child standing on the side of the road in the distance. As I drive closer I realised it was a girl, maybe eight years old, and she was holding what looking to be an A4 sheet of paper in her hands for people driving past to read. The place where she was standing was near a small school car park and a hundred or more metres away from any housing. I thought this whole situation was a little bizarre, but continued home with my food smelling great and my girlfriend waiting for her hunter to arrive.
My destination was only a short kilometre from where the girl was standing and my mind kept thinking about it.
Why was there a young girl standing out in the rain?
What parent would let their child do this?
And the BIG one … what was written on the sheet of paper in her hands?
It was all none of my business, yet the ‘concerned person’ inside couldn’t let it go. As I pulled into the drive-way, I no sooner reversed out again and was driving back down the hill to find out if this girl was okay.
What if her mother has collapsed and she didn’t know about 000, and instead ran to the street with a sign saying HELP!
What if someone had abducted her and threw her from a van and left her with a peice of paper saying only her name?
All these things went threw my mind, but the main thing that I kept thinking of was … what if everyone just drove past the same as I did and this young girl needed help.
I pulled into the small car park and stopped about ten metres from where the girl stood. The weather was miserable and not the kind of day to be standing outside without a jacket or an umbrella. I let my car window slide down.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
The girl gave me a weird uncomfortable look and then pointed over the top of my car to some houses.
“There’s a garage sale over there,” she said.
I could now see the sheet of paper more clearly and it had the words GARAGE SALE written on it.
She ran past my car to what I hope was her house. I let my window glide back up and turned back onto the road. There was no emergency. I delivered the food to my girlfriend and all was well in the world.
THEN I THOUGHT ABOUT IT.
I looked at this whole situation from the eyes of a caring onlooker looking out their kitchen window.
A young child standing out in the drizzly rain. A car pulls up with dark tinted windows. The driver side window goes down. A much older man with a goatee looks out and says something to the girl. She looks uncomfortable. Suddenly she runs off. The tinted window quickly goes back up and the car drives away. This onlooker writes down the registration number and phones the police to explain that something bad may have nearly happened.
Suddenly I’m the bad guy!!!
This thought bugged me yesterday to the point where I started to pose a very simple question to myself.
Would you stop next time? Or would you drive past a child on the side of the road because society makes us all live in fear of being seen as people who can all commit terrible evil things to others?
What would YOU do?
Troy, you’re a good man that is a touch bizarre. Honestly, I’m surprised you drove partpher the first time. I would not have. Not ever. I would have gone to the garage sale and have the parents ‘what for’! We must protect the children always. Ours and others.
I like the way you think, Tami. I’m not surprised, because you are a very strong willed person in your opinions. I wish we had a lot more people like you!!
BUT, as much as we don’t like to admit it out in the public eye, society has changed and men are very wary of how others see them when it comes to interacting with children, especially girls.
I don’t like it, but it’s happening all around us.
I totally understand. And it’s not just men. I have custody of my grandson. Let me back up a bit and say when my children were babies I would shower with them if they were sick. Flash forward, my grandson was terrified of the shower, baths too. I was going to shower with him so I could hold him and comfort him. Didn’t do it. Was afraid of what someone would say…..
That being said, I don’t care what ppl would say. There is on way in God’s green earth I would leave a young child standing along a roadside in the pain. Or lost in a store. Or looking scared or worried on a playground. Children must be protect and cared for no matter the personal cost.
And if the authorities were to look at you, they would discover you great works of fiction. Can you imagine the local papers headline if the investigation was to be prolonged?
Anyway, yes, it is hard for a man to help a child all because a few sick people think small children are play things.
Here where we live, I would not stop and speak to the child. Best I could do if Kat wasn’t with me is stop a bit off, then call the cops and stay until they arrive. If Kat was with me, I would let her talk to the child.
As for the parents of this child, they could have put a rock in a box along the road with the words on it and achieved the same outcome without putting the child in harms way. Take the sickos out of the way and you still have unsafe drivers that may like to play Fast and Furious drifting in the rain as it is the only time their Yugo will do such a thing.
Then you can read an article of how a child was hit and killed by a car and and kick yourself for not stopping.
A lose, lose situation and completely understand where your mind is on this.