Last night, I was at Target picking up a prescription for my cousin Lisa's son, Kaden. Lisa was home with the boys and needed a favor. The Target is pretty close, if not right in between both of our houses and I was more than happy to help. Not only do I know that Lisa would have done the same thing for me, in a heartbeat, this also meant that I'd get to see her boys!! Hooray!
Anywho...like I was saying...I was at Target, standing at the Pharmacy counter waiting for the Pharmacy tech to mix the medicine, and I look over to my left and see a (I'm guessing here) 7 or 8 year old little girl standing there with what looked like NO PANTS ON!!!! You read that right. I had to look again myself. The
little girl had on a winter coat and some sort of gymnastics bloomer/underwear/outfit thingy and her shoes on. I looked closer just in case I was missing some leggings or some panty hose or tights or some sort...no. Her legs were bare. I was silently freaking out. Thoughts began racing through my head.
Where was her mother? (Turns out she was standing right there...)
Where were her pants?!? It's so freaking cold outside!!! (I pulled out my iPhone at that instant..."Feels like
26 degrees).
I had to document it. I cannot tell you enough how freaked I was. After all, my phone was right in my hand from checking the temperature. How could I not??? So...I snapped a few pictures...
After the little girls mother
(who, as you can see from the picture, was dressed completely appropriately for the weather in brown trouser pants, a brown sweater & brown turtleneck - with her coat in the cart) finished having her prescription filled, they walked off. I watched them walk away, noticing all of the other people notice, too. The mother was apparently OBLIVIOUS.
There's no filter for knowing how many child predators are in a big public place like that at any given time & Lord knows they are everywhere. So leaving out the moral issue and leaving out the safety issue, as far as protection from the elements goes, there's still the safety issue with the
CREEP-Os - many of which are hiding in plain sight!!!
I had to get some paper towels, too - so I went to get those, still all in my head about what I had seen. I was headed to the check out, but I couldn't get that little girl out of my head. I must have been walking through the store with such a look of concern/disbelief. I couldn't help but think of my little girl... I thought about when I was growing up and after our extra curriculars, we always put pants on...you know...to keep legs warm. ?!?!
What should I do? Anything???....??? I wouldn't be happy with that. I would have thought about Little Miss No Pants all night. So, I decided to buy the girl a pair of pants. I went to the little girl section of Target and picked out a pair of $2.36 purple (
of course) sweat pants and headed back to the area of the store that I thought the two of them might be.
I approached them slowly, "Excuse me," I said, "I would like to buy this pair of pants for your daughter". The woman responded laughingly, "Oh, that's not necessary, you don't have to do that". I said, "Please. I watched several people walk by and look at your daughters bottom. I saw a man walk by and turn his head to get another look, please just have her put the pants on.". She wanted to give me money for the pants. I didn't want the money. I just wanted her daughter to put on the pair of pants. The woman started to offer excuses to me about why her little girl didn't have any pants on, while holding out a five dollar bill to me - again, I just pleaded with her. "Please. I don't want your money. I just want her to put the pants on." I turned to the little girl. Who, by this time had a look of confusion/dismay/panic on her face and I asked her. "Honey, will you please put on the pair of pants. For me." The way the world is nowadays, you never know what kind of reaction you might get from someone who feels like you might be "sticking your nose where it doesn't belong"...and I surely didn't know what kind of reaction I was going to get from an exchange with this woman (who apparently didn't have the presence of mind to know your daughter needs a pair of pants when it's 26 flippin' degrees outside) - but the little girl put the pants on.
I just felt called to do something about it. It wasn't necessary to involve anyone else, Target employee, or any sort of authority...I took care of it myself...and hopefully, made an impression. I know they both seemed shocked anyhow.
What would you have done in this situation? Do you think I was out of line? Just interested to hear your thoughts on it...
