Home Alone

I just read this article about a woman who's been charged with child cruelty after leaving her six-year-old home alone. The gist of it is that the little girl woke up around her 11 and couldn't find her mom, so she just dialed random numbers on the phone until someone answered and told her to call 911. The lady came back home around 3 am and reported the girl missing. The cops then arrested her, and put the child in the care of another relative. The story has a somewhat happy ending, so I feel it's okay to make a few comments.

Is there a statute of limitations on this kind of thing, because with Christmas coming up I'm inclined to file a report against a certain parent if I don't get anything this year. By six years old, I was a pro at staying home alone. As a matter of fact, it was my preferred choice over:

• Go with my mother to rehearsal


• Go with my grandmother to Senior Circle (or whatever they called it) at church


• Risk my life riding around with my grandfather who drove like the traffic signs were suggestions


• Sit in the 9-hour-long Evening Service for the Pastor's/Usher's/Church's/Senior Choir's/ Trustees' Anniversary.

Now granted, no one ever left me home alone that late, but even if they did I don't think I would've panicked and dialed random numbers. My grandmother used to have me watch the evening news for her and recount the top stories when she got home from her night job, so by six I was mentally damaged enough to consider that one or all of my relatives could be brutally attacked by one of the 15,000 animals that seemed to escape from the National Zoo on a regular basis back then. Either that or they'd be swept up by the tornado watch, and taken to Oz. When my mother came home later than promised one time, I worried that she'd fallen into an open well like Baby Jessica. Real world events + six-year-old-imagination= loose interpretation of reality. The bottom line is that I knew that as long as there was a box of Cap'n Crunch downstairs that I had at least enough food to survive for a while. No need to call the cops just yet.

I still don't understand how the six year old didn't know the number to 911 or at least one relative. I guess we can chalk that up to stored numbers in cell phones and speed dial. Anyway, I'm glad the little girl is okay. I don't know where the mom had to go for four hours that late at night. Correction: I don't want to know. And I guess I can go ahead and pat myself on the back, because by seven I'd been promoted to caring for other kids as well.

Leadership potential!