Oh no, not again!

I live on a pretty busy road, about 5 houses up a small incline from a major intersection with an even busier road. Across from my house is a little road that leads into a maze of little post-World War II era homes.

This morning, I had to pick up my cousin who lives in the subdivision across the street to do some stuff. As I was pulling out of my driveway, I noticed a toddler on a plastic tricycle, pushing himself along the sidewalk of that street across the way. While I was waiting for traffic to clear so I could pull out, I watched him turn the corner, still on the sidewalk, but onto my very busy road. I look around and there was not an adult in sight. This kid could not have been more than 2, and he's pushing himself down the hill toward a major intersection, binky firmly in mouth. It didn't even look like he could reach the pedals.

I throw the car in park and run across the street, down the hill after him yelling, "little boy, little boy, hey you on the big wheel, STOP!". I caught up with him just around the time he stopped and looked around at me, about 30 feet before the intersection. "Hey, buddy, where's your momma?" He just stares at me with his big brown eyes, binky still firmly in mouth. "I know you're not supposed to talk to strangers, so it's okay not to talk to me, but let's turn around and go back up the hill and find your momma, okay?" He starts pushing himself backward, then turns it around and we start going up the hill, together. I tell him again, "I know I'm a stranger, but you're on a very busy road and you could get big boo-boos. We need to find your momma." How creepy does that sound? Add that I wanted to show him a puppy and feed him some candy and I could have just stolen him. Luckily for him, I don't like children.

Right after we turn around, I see a couple walking toward me, but it turns out they are not his parents. We keep going up the hill with me telling him he's doing a good job, trying to help him steer, pushing him up the hill and taking over the handlebars where I have to because he keeps trying to go off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, until we get to the corner across from my driveway.

I look around and see a lady down that side road and across the street and yell to her asking if the kid is hers. Nope, not hers either. As I'm leaning over the kid and asking him if he knows which house is his, does he know where his momma is, my next door neighbor yells, "there she is!".

There is a lady walking up from the intersection, she looks vaguely familiar, but I can't place her, and she's way too old to be the kid's mother. She's saying something that doesn't make sense about going the wrong way when she was looking for him and had to go around the block. All I heard was yada-yada-yada. I said, "Sorry if I stepped on your toes, but he was headed down the hill toward the intersection". She says, "Did he put his brakes on?". I was flabbergasted. "Uh, no, he was pushing himself, not pedaling." Do those things even have brakes?

She gets to the kid and smacks him on the arm. "Bad boy, DANGER!" She pulls the kid off the bike, swats his rear-end and tells him he's walking home. "Bad boy, do you know how much trouble you are in?" I'm watching this with my jaw dropped open in disbelief. She finally turns and thanks me, but I could not reply.

I'm thinking, "you stupid cunt, why were YOU not keeping a better eye on him? You didn't even know which way out of the driveway he had gone! He could have gotten run over or stolen!". I have never been the kind of person to interfere with how other people want to raise their children. To some people that might seem wimpy, but I also don't go out of my way to poke bears with a stick. Especially when the bear already seems a little crazy. I wanted to punch her in the face, quite honestly, and I am not a physically violent person. Oh, sure, I get the impulses, but I don't act upon them.

It didn't help that the kid kept staring at ME with those big brown eyes while this was going on, like "I thought you told me we were going to find my momma?". Even when I crossed the road and got in my car, I looked over and the kid was still staring at me. He never cried, he never uttered a sound during all of that. All I could do was wave to him, and drive away. Because what I really wanted to do was swoop that baby into my arms and bring him to my house and feed him chocolate milk and sugar cookies until his momma really did come get him. And maybe get him a kitten. Again, it's a good thing I don't act purely on my impulses.

I was still shaking when I got to my cousin's house. She was kind enough to hug me and tell me I had done the right thing, and that she probably would have punched the lady in the face. She and I did stuff for the next couple of hours, and I eventually stopped thinking about it.

After dropping my cousin off, the quickest way home is to go down the street I mentioned earlier across from my house. As I always do when passing by the house that I almost stole the cat from, I looked over to see if the cat was in the yard. Holy Mother of God, it was the same lady! That was why she looked so familiar. I almost stole her cat last year, I almost stole her grandson this year.

One of these days she is going to call the cops on me. And I don't know how I'm going to defend myself.