Things happen to me that don't happen to other, dare I say "normal," people.
Today I found a baby.
I was driving down the street, past the old school that they use for an admin building now, and I saw a stroller sitting in the grass, next to the driveway that leads to the parking lot, far from any buildings or people.
"Weird," I said to my dad, who I was talking to on the phone, "I just saw a stroller that appeared to be abandoned by the side of the road." Pause... "I hope there wasn't a baby in it! Hold on, I have to go check and make sure there isn't a baby in it..."
I turned right into the neighborhood, then right twice more to get back to where I had been. I rounded the corner into the parking lot, peeked into the stroller (it was facing away from the driveway) and I saw feet!
"Oh my God, Dad, there's a baby! I'll call you back!"
I hung up on Dad. Frantic, I started running toward the stroller, while looking around for someone, anyone, that the kid might belong to. He was asleep - or at least, I HOPED he was asleep. My boring, ordinary day of running errands was turning into a made-for-TV-movie.
The only person I saw was a kid who appeared to be 6 or 8 on his bike, about 150 feet to my right. Surely he's not the babysitter or something? My eyes scanned right, and I saw a woman bending down, helping her daughter ride her bike. She was at least 200 feet away from me and the stroller. I had to yell to be heard, "Is this yours?" I shouted. "Yeah!" she said. "Oh my God, I saw the stroller, and I didn't see you (she was already behind me by the time I spied the stroller on my first drive past), and I freaked out! Sorry!"
I got into my car and, a little sheepishly, turned around and drove away.
But then I thought about it, and I'm kind of glad that I'm the kind of person who stops when she sees something unusual like that. I mean, what if he had been abandoned? How many people would have driven right by?
So, it makes my life kind of weird and dramatic, but I don't think I'd change the way I am. At least, not on this point...
3 comments:
WOW! Why WAS she so far away??
I think I would have stopped too. Or at least thought later, "I should have stopped to see what that was all about", and felt guilty/nervous.
Glad everything turned out OK in the end. :-)
I think the kid she was teaching to ride the bike must have ridden over there and fallen or something? I dunno. She was low to the ground when I initially stopped, which prevented me from seeing her, so that was the most logical explanation I could come up with.
The other weird thing was that it was 80 some odd degrees and sunny, and she had parked him in direct sunlight, in spite of the many trees that were nearby. That reinforced my theory that her other kid fell - maybe she just left the stroller where it was in her haste to get to her other child, and didn't think about it being so near the road, or in the sun, or the fact that it would terrify nosy passers-by.
Amy
Wow. I'm glad that you stopped because it was the right thing to do. I hope that I would have done the same thing. I think I would have.
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