25Jun/094
Neighbor + Water Bottle + Neighbor =
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= What the heck is wrong with our society?
Tonight, I was standing at our kitchen sink, cleaning up after dinner, looking out the window onto 25th Street and beyond.
Across the street, our neighbor Kyle was cutting his grass, and I noticed that he had a water bottle on the hood of his car.
As I was watching, from left to right, a woman was walking down the sidewalk across the street, pushing a stroller with her two young children.
When she got to the neighbor's car, she stopped, stretched her neck to look around the corner of the house to look for him. Seeing that he was cutting away from her - with his back to her - she slyly grabbed his water bottle and slipped it into her oversized purse. And then she kept watching.
I was flabbergasted.
So I immediately opened our back door, walked onto the porch, and yelled across the street: "Excuse me, ma'am... are you going to take that, or are you putting it back?"
After looking at me dumbfounded for a moment, she just stomped and said "Well d@mn!"
She went to pull the water bottle out of her purse and put it back on Kyle's hood. She mumbled something about her boy just needing water. So I apologized and explained that I'd be happy to give her a cup of water if they needed it.
To which she changed her reply yet again, saying "No, my boy just wanted the bottle, so I thought I'd take it."
I was even more flabbergasted.
What the heck is she teaching her kids by this kind of behavior? "Oh... I want it... so why don't I just take it? That's okay."
Goodness gracious. These are the kids my boys will be alongside in school and in life. Scary.
When she walked off and Kyle stopped cutting his grass, I explained to him what had happened. Funny... his first reply was exactly the same "What the heck is she teaching her kids?"
I'll be the first to admit - it's hard enough being a parent. When you're in severe need, I can imagine it's that much harder.
And I would do just about anything for my boys. But I wouldn't steal. That's just too much. And goodness, if I was even going to do something that bad, I wouldn't do it on their request, in sight of them. Not that I ever even would, mind you.
So I'm still in disbelief, and go to bed praying even harder for a conversion of our culture; a righting of our moors, if you will. Would you pray with me for that?
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June 25th, 2009 - 23:06
Michael I would of loved to see the look on her face when you asked her if she was going to put that back. I’m suprised she didn’t just ignore you and walk off. People like that, in my opinion, don’t even think of what it teaches there children. A friend of mine once took her kids into Kmart and had them help her open boxes of monopoly games just to get the dice for her Bunco (sp?) club she was hosting and then bragged about it! After she told me about it, my girls made the comment to me how terrible that was and THEY couldn’t believe that she had done it and they were only 10 and 8 at the time!
June 26th, 2009 - 10:26
It’s a scary world when a parent thinks it’s okay to teach their child to steal. I’m glad you spoke up to her, Mike. You never know, maybe that made her think about what she was doing and she’ll think twice next time. We can hope and pray that is the case, and pray for all parents to do what is right for their children.
June 26th, 2009 - 19:50
I was walking into K-Mart one evening and almost to the sidewalk when I noticed out of the corner of my eye two BIG men running down the sidewalk. I thought they were running toward me, but instead slammed into the guy pushing a cart with a baby in it and tackled him to the ground. The cart started rolling down the sidewalk into the street in front of K-Mart with a car coming. I grabbed the cart (with the baby) and pushed it back up to the sidewalk. The men reached inside the babies diaper and pulled out an MP3 player. The “dad” had stollen it and stuffed it in the babies diaper. Michael, I’m with you and pray for our country and the righting of our morals every night.
July 14th, 2009 - 21:43
It baffles me that there are parents like this out there in the world. Do they not realise that we lead by example?
I hope that by you speaking up, the children learned something.
Whether or not they think someone is watching, they should do the right thing. This woman is doing quite a disservice to their children… and in turn, society.
Thank you for speaking up, we need more people like you in the world.
Jenn