Innocence Lost

Yesterday was the first field trip for Emily's pre-school. They were supposed to go to an apple orchard and pick apples, then have their snack, picnic style, on blankets on the grass.

Yesterday's weather...absolutely lousy. It was windy, barely 50 degrees and drizzling very steadily. I had Ethan with me and really, really didn't want to have to take him out in that kind of weather, but didn't really have much choice until Emily's teacher stepped up and offered to take Emily with her so that Ethan didn't have to get wet and cold. Bless her heart. She has a young grandson and said that she wouldn't take him out in that, so she understood. Thankfully, Emily really likes her new teacher, so she went willingly.

Since the weather was so bad, the apple picking didn't last long at all. What took well over an hour last year took barely 20 minutes this year, with no picnic snack. All in all, they should have rescheduled. When Em got back to the van, her jeans were absolutely soaked up to the knee, as were her socks and tennis shoes. I stripped her down to her sweatshirt and underwear, covered her in one of Ethan's blankets and we headed home.

Since the filed trip was so lousy (and she had so been looking forward to it), I offered to take her home to get dry clothes and then to let her go play at the mall. She thought that sounded good and so off we went.

Things went fine until we headed back home. As we were standing at the van in the Sear's parking lot, trying to load the stroller/car seat and Emily in the van, I heard someone yelling and then saw a large black woman running (and I use the term very loosely) in an erratic fashion not too far from where we were. She was being pursued by a mall security guard. It would have been funny if it had just been me there, because it was like watching everything in slow motion, the woman was running so slowly. She was zig-zagging all around, trying to get away, but anyone could see that there was no way she was going to out-run the security guard. There was also a plainclothes female officer trying to catch her. I assume that the woman was trying to shoplift, but I guess I'm not 100% sure.

Anyhow, the yelling, aside from the guards telling her to stop, was the woman yelling to whomever was supposed to be manning the "getaway" vehicle. She kept yelling to "Jamal" or something like that, who apparently was supposed to be picking her up, but by this time, the guards had caught up to the woman and a patrolling security vehicle had cornered the getaway car.

Meanwhile, I'm desperately trying to get Emily buckled in her carseat and trying to get the heck out of there because it's all happening way to close for comfort (especially since you just never know what a desperate criminal will try in order to get away). In retrospect, I should have broken my "always buckle up" rule and just driven somewhere else in the parking lot, but it all happened so fast.

As we finally start driving away, about three spaces down from our car, Emily is able to look out her window and see the woman, lying face down on the ground, being handcuffed. The woman's pants were, quite literally hanging down below her naked rear end (I think they were falling off as she was running) and so this is the image left in my poor barely 5 year old's mind.

I spent the entire ride home (about 15 minutes) trying to explain what was happening because Emily was full of questions, and as usual, the simplest explanations weren't cutting it. She was curious and is inquisitive, but is also sometimes too sensitive and smart for her own good. It can make for a bad combination...and at bedtime, it proved to be just that. She spent the better part of an hour last night, crying and being upset because she was afraid to go back to the mall and afraid of what she had seen.

So thanks a lot, stupid selfish shoplifting criminal. Thanks for causing prices to go up for all of us. Thanks for making the world a lot less safe, but most of all, thanks for scaring my sweet, sensitive little girl and taking away a bit more of her childish innocence. I hope you spend a nice long time in a miserable jail cell. You deserve it.