I have to admit something in this post. I left my 10 year old and 8 year old in the van while I dropped the younger two children off at daycare. I know lock me up now! Mind you, the daycare is attached to a church in a very safe neighbor with no drive through traffic. It is a secure spot behind the church with only one entrance/exit.
While I was walking out of daycare, this older gentleman, who I have never seen before, stops me and asks if I am the owner of the silver mini-van. Uh, yeah, I am. What did my kids do? In my mind, I’m thinking he was mooned, someone stuck his tongue out at him, the two kids were fighting to the death in the back seat….
The story went in a direction that I did not expect. He claims my son was in the front seat trying to move the gears. He went on and on about how dangerous it was, blah, blah… I thanks him for the information but I knew it didn’t sound right. While Peyton may be ornery, he would not try to drive off in my car, right?
As soon as I got into the car, the both kids started telling me about how this weird man tried to get in the car and told them not to mess with the shifter. Come to find out my son was turning on the window wipers which are to the right side of the steering wheel where a gear shift is sometimes located. In my Honda van, however, the gear shift is closer to the radio panel than to the steering wheel. Since it was raining and both kid’s stories matched up, it made complete sense.
So in fact, in an effort to be “safety” conscious, this man freaked my kids out by trying to get in the car and talk to them when he was a stranger to them. I know he was probably harmless but they didn’t know that.
I don’t really know what the point of this story is besides the old man probably went around telling everyone he knew about an untrue story about a kid trying to move the gear shifter while the mom wasn’t in the car….the things that irritate me…
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