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The Little Girl
Recently, my youngest son and I went to the beach for an afternoon of fun and sun…surf and turf (turf = McDonald’s Happy Meal). As with any beach, there were numerous families laying around, many kids wandering around..making it nearly impossible to tell who belongs to who.
The place that my son and I finally find refuge, there were 2 groups…maybe families..but at any rate, they were congregated together which lead me to believe that they were familied up.
As me and my son pitched our tent (meaning we layed out the Queen sized flat sheet that had previously been used on my son’s bed before he peed the bed the night before and the fitted sheet had to be remanded to the laundry basket for soap and water attention)…anyway…to put your mind at ease….the Flat Sheet was clean (at minimum..3 year old urine free)….OK ..I digress…
As we marched toward the water to get our feet wet…we left our fort for a half a second…with my son beside me I hear a little person voice (not my son’s) say ‘Daddy.’…as I turned around, the voice (that was actually attached to a little girls body…approximately a little over 3 years old..in a Floral 2 piece swimsuit) continued, "Daddy, can I wear the glasses?"
First of all, the first thing that I remember seeing when I turned around was the dirty, sandy, wet feet of A PERSON on my previously self-proclaimed clean and 3 year old urine free Flat Sheet. Sand was all over it from her walking all over it to get to my son’s Spiderman shades that he left there.
"No…put the glasses down," I said…leaving out the much desired addition to the comment ‘And get your dirty ass feet off my 3 year old urine free white flat sheet..and aint yo parents ever teach you to leave STRANGERS things alone??!."…needless to say, our journey away from our fort was cut completely short.
As I walk with my son back over to our fort, I made eye contact with the two ladies that were posted up at our 8 o’clock (slightly behind us and to our left…for those of you that don’t know what the 8 o’clock vacinity/compass reference means)…they looked my way, but I can’t say for sure they looked back at me. My look in their direction, was intended to say, "Get your kid off folks forts made of a 3 year old urine free flat sheet..and furthermore, teach her to not pick up things that don’t belong to her!"…How my eyes were suppose to communicate that in a 3 second glare is somewhat beyond me..but that was my thought and intent.
So…’The Little Girl’ and my son hit it off…I sat there and enjoyed the sun, the son, the skyline view, etc…what a day at the beach is suppose to be. Let me backtrack for a half a sentence and say that the women to our 8 o’clock had a little girl with them also…about 4-5 in age, and had on damn near the EXACT SAME bathing suit as my son and I’s newfound dirty foot fort walking friend. My initial and immediate ASSumption, was that ‘The Little Girl’ was with them…they were the closet group to us, and ‘The Little Girl’ with them not only favored ”The Little Girl” but was damn near dressed JUST LIKE HER. It was (like I guess all assumptions) a reasonable one.
So, after they played for 30 or 45 minutes, I noticed that no one had called for ‘The Little Girl’, notioned for her….NOTHING.
"Where’s your mommy?" I asked ‘The Little Girl’.
"Ummm…she is over there." she said in her little 3 year old voice.
She sounded kind of unsure, but answering to the best of her knowledge…I looked in the direction that she notioned (which was beyond even the closest people to the right of our Fort…but all I saw was a random person or two and no one that looked like ‘Mommy’
Then ‘The Little Girl’ tried to out fox me…she tried to ‘Deflect’ my line of questioning….
"Where’s your mommy?" she askes my son.
My son, not paying attention to her ’game’ because he too busy playing with his boy toys (Transformer, bucket, race car, McDonald’s Happy Meal Prize, etc.) answers, "At Work." (Which she is out of town on Training, and I mentioned to her how cool he was when he was asked about her whereabouts)
After it starts to get a little cold, and ‘The Little Girl’ says that she is getting cold, I tell the girl to tell her Mommy to come over here. She gets up and starts walking in the direction that she initially pointed me in…I’m watching her walk past like 3 clusters of people before she makes it to her destination. This time, a woman that looks like "Mommy" material is sitting there. The girl stays over there for a minute or so and no sooner than I can turn my head…She’s back!
WTF. Look ’Mommy’…your kid has been over here without even a sound from you for at least 30-45 minutes…kickin it with me and my boy. And you send her back, after a minute, and you merely toss her a bone (bone = bag of Animal Crackers). You ain’t even came to see if I’m cool with your daughter over here interrupting my quality time with my kid…DAMN. I recently heard a report that American’s are becoming more and more self-centered. ‘Mommy’ was apparently used in that recent study.
So, ‘The Little Girl’ is back for Round 2. My son welcomes her return and they continue to play, and I continue to put in Daddy Duty for a kid that (who doesn’t know my name) has been creeping me out by calling me ‘Daddy’…the entire time..starting with our meeting as she and her dirty, sandy feet stood atop our 3 year old urine free flat queen sheet fort.
Mommy, man with Mommy, and another woman and kid all make their way between their fort, the water, laughing, and playing, swimming, etc…while a stranger (Me) watches over their child. (and oh yeah…now that I know what mommy looks like, I got my eye on her triffling ass.
Finally, after I took a few pictures and a funny video of my son on a mission and not letting ‘The Little Girl" sidetrack him and his mission, I make the decision to break the news to my Son that it’s time to go.
As it is time to go, I tell ”The Little Girl” that we are about to go, she goes about her way..luckily goes in the direction of her mother who is now back at her fort and looking ready to go.
As my son and I walk passed ‘The Little Girl’, who has now been stripped naked and is standing ass naked on the sand, not being covered up and shielded by anyone in her group, I walk by her mom and the man with her mom. Neither say a word, and neither was I for a second, then before I get completely passed them I say, "You have a beautiful daughter….She is very polite." The man doesn’t even acknowledge my comment, and the woman kinda looks up and grins.
NOTE TO ALL PARENTS
There are a lot of Crazyass people walking around in the world. Some even make their way to public places that kids frequent like the Library, Beach, Social Networking sites, Wal-Marts, Targets, etc. etc. etc. They are called PREDATORS. They count on you to slip up and leave your child, children, family members unattended and vulnerable to their actions and harmful ways. While you are in the water laughin’ and splashin’, your daughter or son could have been in hurt, touched, spoken to in an inappropriate manner, cursed at, kidnapped, or worse. Take the below conversation as case in point..to which coincidentally, a teenage girl and her girlfriend, walk near our fort and I overhear them talking amongst themselves.
"Watch out for that Pervert with the Video Camera taping people!," says girl1.
"Who?" says girl2.
"Da guy walking around with the camera and the gray shirt," says girl1.
The above overheard conversation is CONCRETE proof in the pudding that these people are amongst us and you never really know who or where they are.
You dodged a bullet this time ’Mommy’…because your daughter found her way to a secure, comforting, safehaven’ish’ Fort, and not that of some random Mr. Public Menance and Misfit, or the fort of the guy in the Gray shirt with the video camera.
Having a child in tow doesn’t make a caretaker any more trustworthy or safe. Some Predators use a type of bait (like fishing) to intice their prey. If you see your kid has found a playmate their age, come and interact with the playmates caretaker…to see if in fact the person even appears or seems like they would be a positive influence that you’d want your child to be exposed to. You’d be surprised that from either first word, close-up glance, or verbal interaction how some people’s instability shines right through…unequivocally not-OK….oh and for God’s sake, move closer to where your child is at…someone stay on overseeing duty..everybody can’t go get in the water like you don’t have any other cares in the world, on Sand…or at sea. C’Mon ‘Mommy’.
When she comes to mind, I will pray for ‘The Little Girl.’
Glad you enjoyed the surf and turf! Thanks for being one of the upstanding people in the world <3
haha!..Thanks for reading!
Thought that’s why u put it there!
Looks like I have increased my readership by 1…I can live with that.
I’m not sure if its lazy parenting or just people that think the world is still what it was when we were kids…and it wasn’t all that safe then.
I don’t think its appropriate to teach your kids to fear every person on the street but you definitely need to teach them how to be self aware and how to not paint a target on themselves.
She was lucky she wandered over to your pee free sheet.