Posted on 03/28/2015 9:44:48 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
PHILADELPHIA (AP) A 4-year-old girl has grabbed her purple raincoat, slipped out of her house at 3 a.m. and hopped a Philadelphia bus in search of a snack.
Bus driver Harlan Jenifer says the girl swung her legs in a seat as she chanted, All I want is a slushie.
(Excerpt) Read more at wtop.com ...
Slush Puppies and Slurpees are calling the White House at 3:00 a.m. Who will pick up the phone?
I’d say this family has their hands full with this little girl!
Philly, wearing purple, public transportation, 3am...
I bet I can give a spot on description of the girl.
My wife’s cousin had two kids when she was younger (20s) and then one when she was 42. That third kid was something else. I remember he would climb out of his crib in the middle of the night and do all kinds of absolutely crazy stuff. Eventually they had to literally lock him in his room at night.
It didn’t turn out well either, lifelong addiction problems.
Hopefully the child in this story turns out better.
I was 100% wrong...
We tend to underestimate what pre-schoolers are capable of.
She had probably saved and counted her own money for a while, keeping her plans a secret. I’m glad she met up with a nice bus driver who did the right thing. At least she had dressed for the weather. Meanwhile, send the dad to Home Depot to buy a door latch assembly asap. Place it all the way to the top of the door jamb. Move any lightweight chairs or weigh them down.
Story does not say if the girl got her Slushy, and what flavor. Better have one ready in the Waiting Room.
This is something my little brother would do. When he was 3 or 4 he would get up, and go outside and do some exploring. The police would sometimes find he wandering and brought him home.
Different time, different place. He grew out of it and as far as I know his wandering had no lasting effect on him.
I should add this was the early 1950s
There are occasionally stories about young kids who got out during the night and freeze to death. I used to think the parents were completely incompetent.
Then we had our 4th child. We eventually put hook latches at the top of all exterior doors just to keep her in at night. I figured the risk of fire was much less than the risk of her getting out in the winter and freezing to death or drowning in the summer.
She was something else. At 11 months she could climb out of her crib. At 12 months she could climb up to get things off the top of the refrigerator. There wasn’t a buckle or strap that could keep her in a cart or high chair. I spent most of her 2nd -4th years looking for her in a panic.
Some kids are just like that.
She must have given you quite a few gray hairs.
You bet they do. I had one of my daughters do something similar the day after her 4th birthday, which thankfully falls in August.
She took the ten dollar bill she had gotten for her birthday, and while I was tending her infant sister, strolled the half a block down the street to the drug store, purchased a roll of Necco wafers, and strolled home, with the candy and nine dollars and seventy-five cents in change in small brown paper bag. Oh, and she was wearing only her panties. Needless to say her teen years were a nightmare.
This woman is now a nurse in the ICU, and has a daughter exactly like her.
My brother and our family dog at the time ran away together to go to my grandparents’ house when he was just 17 months old. They lived across some highways and they actually made it pretty far before the cops picked them up.
Yes! I said most were from her :) Thankfully, she has calmed down and is a sweet girl now.
I grew up then and did some things that would give a parent nightmares today. Nothing bad ever happened, I never felt like I was in danger and you never read horror stories in the media. Things were simpler then and every kid was safe.
Sometimes, you just gotta have that Slushee.
What a 5 second roller coaster of emotions for whoever answered the phone call from the hospital.
Key words: “I want”
Many years ago I was living in an apartment. One warm morning I decided to eat my breakfast on the front stoop. It was early in the morning on a weekend. No one was out.
My head was buried in the morning paper when I heard this tiny voice say “hi.” I looked up and there was a toddler by herself clad in pajamas and slippers walking up the street. I called her over, took her inside and tried to find out where she lived. Of course, she didn’t know. So I called the police.
The police had come and were about to take her away when this very distraught man came along. The little girl said, “Daddy!”
Turns out, while the rest of the family was sleeping, she got up, put a chair by the door, got up on the chair and unlocked the door. Then she just went out. No one in the house heard her and didn’t know she was missing until the mother got up and found out the little girl was missing.
The police talked to the parents and there was nothing amiss in the household. This little girl just wanted to take a stroll. Kids are quicker and often a lot smarter than us adults.
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