My Sunday Feeling

You could fill a thimble with what I know about psychology.  But I believe that the phrase "cognitive dissonance" pertains to things we experience that don't quite fit within our experience.  When things just don't look right.  However you define it, I'm pretty sure I  experienced it Wednesday morning.

I was driving down a major artery in the neighbors en route to the running track at school.  Suddenly I saw something low to my left out of the corner of my eye.  I looked in my side mirror and thought I saw a little boy, a baby really, walking down the sidewalk.  

I was like, what?  That's not supposed to be there.

I hung a left and went around the block.  There he was.  A toddler. No more than 3.  Barefoot and in his jammies walking toward me bigger than Dallas.  I started slowing down.  I guess that spooked the little guy because he turned and ran the other way.  I followed him as he went up the front steps of one half of a house.

I pulled onto a side street and got out of the car.  He was banging on the storm door and calling "Mommy! Mommy!"

What to do?  Apart from hoping that Mommy would open the damn door that is?   I started to go up the steps to bang on the door myself.  

But then I thought of George Floyd.  Certainly not in the sense that I feared any retaliation by the cops.  I'm white.  I'm older.  As far as I know, I'm not wanted for anything. I drive a late model car festooned with stickers that indicate that I am well educated although just because you have a particular school's sticker on your car doesn't mean much.  My stepson is a Georgia Bulldog fan for reasons that are by no means clear to me and despite my attempts to raise him better.  He has the red "G" on his truck.  Perhaps it is for "Go Figure."

No.  I was hesitant to intervene further because between the pandemic, the horrifying circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Floyd and the outbreak of protest afterwards along with the fact that there are touchy white folks out there with too many guns, I thought it not outside the realm of possibility that I might get shot for my trouble.  I mean, what's scarier than seeing a lost child with a stranger?  

And it occurred to me that "aint that a hell of a thing to have to worry about at a time like this?"

So I developed a plan.  I was not going to leave the little boy who was not particularly disturbed by my presence thank God.  I decided to give Mommy a couple more minutes to get her ass to the stoop and then I was going to call 911.  Let a cop knock on the door.  

A few minutes later I heard running down steps in the back.  A man who I assumed was Daddy came tearing around the corner with a cell phone in his hand.  He was obviously terror-stricken.  I came around my car with my hands held out to him as if to say "Whoa!.

I pointed to the porch.  

"He's right there.  He's OK.  I stayed with him."

The man scooped up the boy and held him close.

"Thank you," he muttered.  

"Look man," I said. "When I first saw your kid he was halfway down the block walking around like he owned the place."

I was yelling.  I am not a yeller.  

"Thank you. Thank you."

About that time a car pulled in behind me.  Lone female driver.  I figured it was Mommy.  

And I figured things were fixing to get real with Daddy.  I'm prescient like that. Besides, I had done my civic duty.  The child was safe.  I had experienced enough drama for one day.

Later on I wondered, and still do, whether my reluctance to put my hand on the child and knock on the door myself was justified. Or paranoia.  Or both.

But I know this.  The whole country seems to be on fire in 9 places at once.  And at a time when we could use a leader in the White House we have a rageaholic who seems intent on fanning those flames.  People are on edge.  And there are too many guns.

Still.  

Aint this a hell of a thing to have to worry about when you're trying to get an escaped child home?

I mean really?   

I believe they call it "cognitive dissonance."