Humble Tidbits of Vacuity

OK. So, on Friday I took a small break from work and went to the Family Dollar store that’s close by and got myself a Coke and a box of Bite Size Frosted Mini-Wheats. When I got up to the line, I saw that only one register was open and it was backed up. Apparently, Family Dollar was THE place to be on Friday afternoon. Anyway, about 6 people back from the register, there was a display case of some sort, which would obviously cause the line to have to bend in one direction (or the other) and any new member of the line would then have to approach it from the side.

Well, there was a little girl…I’ll say about 6 or so…standing with a cart full of things. She may have been in line (because she was coming from the side) or she may not have been (because the space between her and the person who was DEFINITELY in line seemed to be right on the cusp of that imaginary demarcation line that would make the answer obvious). I didn’t see a parent with her so I figured I’d just go ahead and ask this little girl if she was in line. After all, I wouldn’t want to cut in front of her if she was.

So I asked her, “Are you standing in line?”

She looked at me like a deer caught in headlights. “Huh?”

So I asked again. “Are you in this line or are you just standing here waiting for your mom or dad?”

She just stared at me.

I said, “This is what I’m going to do, OK? I’m going to stand here (taking the place behind the last, obvious person in line) and if it turns out you ARE in line, I’ll let you and you go in front of me.”

And that’s when this happened:

“GET AWAY FROM HER!”

Everybody stopped what they were doing to see what was going on.

This woman came running up and put herself between me and the little girl. “WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?”

“I’m sorry, was this your place in line?”

“DON’T GIVE THAT BULLSHIT! WHAT WERE YOU SAYING TO MY DAUGHTER?”

“I was just trying—“

“TRYING TO WHAT? HUH? WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO?”

“—figure out if she was in line or not.”

“YEAH ,RIGHT!” She took the girl’s hand and started pushing the cart away and down one of the aisles. “OUGHTA CALL THE DAMN COPS ON YOUR ASS, TRYING TO WHATEVER WITH MY LITTLE GIRL!”

And then in a gesture that I’m constantly amazed at, the people in line offered to let me go in front of all of them since I only had 2 things. The person who was next to me in line offered his support by saying that he knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong and that the woman was overreacting. I gave the cashier (who sees me often, as Coke and Mini-Wheats are my standard purchases a couple of times a week) my business card with instructions to give it to the police in case the woman decided to “call the damn cops.” I think I’m in the clear, since I haven’t heard anything.

BUT, it does bring up an odd issue: pedohfealeea (purposefully misspelled so as not to attract undesired traffic) and the hysteria surrounding it.

I’m going to ask you to go here and read the article.

Done? Good. I’m going to come right out and say that I would probably have done what Mr. Peachey did. In fact, I’m SURE that I’d have done what Mr. Peachey did, because I have. Twice in the last year. Both times had to do with witnessing a kid have a bike wreck. The first time, my wife was in the van with me. We saw a girl fall off her bike. It looked spectacular, but the girl sat up and was holding her knee. I drove on by, and only stopped at the behest of my wife, who made be back up so she could see if she was OK. And she was, just had a scrape on her knee. The second time was pretty much identical. A kid fell off his bike. Again, it was pretty spectacular looking. But I drove on by.

The first instance, the thought of “ped hysteria” did go through my mind, but only because of an incident that happened in 2005. And that issue happened with people that I knew. I had dropped off my older daughter, S, at a friend’s house for a birthday party. My younger daughter, A, was in the back of the van and on the way home saw one of her classmates playing in her yard. I pulled over (on the wrong side of the street), my daughter opened the side door to the van and called to her friend. Her friend called back, jumped off the swing, and started coming to the van. That’s when Mom dashed out of the house and restrained her daughter. Only when I said, “Hey there, C. A just wanted to stop and say ‘hi.’” did Mom relax.

The second instance of a kid falling off the bike, I don’t recall ever consciously rationalizing why I wasn’t going to stop. I just didn’t.

Should I have stopped? Probably. It would have been the decent thing to do. But I didn’t. Other personal instances, which you can read about HERE, and news stories like THIS are what make it very easy for me to understand WHY Mr Peachey did what he did.

And as I’ve stated over at Jenny’s Flawed and Disorderly May 1st post (comment 28 of 31), I’m not proud that I would act in a similar fashion.

This post was hand-crafted especially for you by Kevin at 4:16 PM |