Funny Story

Well, I say “funny” although it could also be “scary.” It was just that kind of funny. Not really the “Ha-ha” kind, but the “OMG!” kind. Though I write about it with tongue firmly planted in cheek, if the situation were reversed, I’d be freaking out like you wouldn’t believe.

By now, you’re probably thinking I should finish qualifying things and just tell you what happened. Ok. You’re the loyal reader. Therefore, you’re the “customer” in this situation. So, here you are…


So often, when Joelle and I are driving through neighborhoods (for yard sales, to drop something off somewhere, or just about any reason) we seem to have a knack for finding stray dogs wandering around. Sometimes, they have collars with phone number. Other times, we spend considerable time knocking on doors in the neighborhood trying to find the dog’s home. We almost seem to be a magnet for this sort of thing.

Last night, however, was a bit different. After dinner, we put Kyle in his stroller and went for a walk around the neighborhood. I’m not exactly sure how far around it is…maybe a mile or so. On the last stretch of the walk, almost back to the house, Joelle sees up ahead a small child standing by the road. At a distance, he looked as though he were not much bigger than Kyle. I started running toward him before he tried to cross the street by himself.

When I caught up to him, the driver of an SUV had already stopped at the other side of the road. It looked like she was talking to him to make sure he didn’t go into the road. When I got there, she asked if I knew who the boy was and I said I didn’t.

After she drove off, I got the boy’s name and that he was four years old. As Joelle and Kyle were catching up, I tried to find out where he came from, where his house was, what he was doing out here, etc. He didn’t know is phone number and only had a vague idea that his house was “really far that way.” As Joelle caught up to us, we were walking down a bike path in the direction he had indicated, hoping that we would go by a house that he thought was familiar.

While we were walking, we got more confused. He said he was going to see his mom, but that his mom was home and he had just come from there. The family was apparently out playing baseball in the back yard. He said his mom knew he was out, but he wasn’t sure if his dad knew.

Finally, we decided to head back to the main road and call 9-1-1 to see if we could get someone from the Sheriff’s department to help find the boys home. We walked back out to the road, made the call and were in the process of describing the situation and describing the boy when we heard a woman on a bike shout for him. As she approached us, her husband came from another direction.

They were quite relieved when they found him. We explained where we found him and everything that had happened. They told us that they were playing baseball in the back yard and that the ball went over the fence and into a ravine. So, the mom had gone around to the ravine and, it seems, the little one wanted to go back there with her but didn’t know how to get back there. So, he apparently had wandered down the road to where we found him, trying to figure out which way his mom had gone.

All is well, now. He’s back home, the parents are relieved and Joelle quipped that we used to find stray dogs all the time and now it’s been “upgraded” to finding stray children on the road. Crazy stuff. You just can’t make this up!

Until next time…TTFN!