Tricky People

I had to have a talk with Jack the other day. A very serious talk.

I had a moment that was very scary in the grocery store last week. A man tried to take Jack from me.

I think he was just old a senile, but it was still scary and weird how the whole thing went down.

We were standing in the checkout line in Smith's. Jack was in front of the grocery cart and I was unloading the items onto the conveyor belt. I was in a hurry and distracted because it was lunch time and nap time for both of my boys and they were starting to loose it.

I noticed the man, trying to communicate with Jack, touching his nose and making coochy-coo noises at him. I just thought, "that's weird, but he's old and probably just likes seeing kids when he gets the chance". Jack was a little weired out by it too, but I didn't think much of it. I continued to unload the groceries.

The next time I looked up, I realized that this guy didn't speak a word of English, as he was still trying to communicate with Jack, but hadn't said anything. Then I saw the man put his finger to his lips, whisper, SHHH!! and he motioned for Jack to come to him.

That was it. My weird monitor was going into hyper driver. He wasn't just a cute little old man any more. Something weird was happening here. I pulled Jack closer to me, behind the cart, and continued unloading.

I looked up again, and the man was holding Jack's hand, and starting to walk away with him, as Jack looked back at me completely confused.

I quickly grabbed Jack away from the old man, and put him back in the shopping cart and kept a hand on him the entire time. Meanwhile, the man who was bagging my groceries was yelling at the man in some other language that I guess might have been Russian.

I think he was senile. Maybe, in his old mind, he thought that Jack was his kid or something.... but what he was doing was definitely not okay.

He finished checking out and stood there the entire time we were being rung up. If he started following me to my car, I was going to have to have an employee help me to my car because I definitely was not feeling safe at this point. Fortunately he didn't follow us.

When we got to the car, I had a talk with Jack about tricky people. About how some times people pretend to be nice, but are really bad, and that he should never, ever go with someone who he doesn't know. I taught him how to yell, "NO YOU"RE NOT MY MOM" and "HELP! KIDNAPPER" if anything like that ever happens again.

Sometimes I just get so sad about this world we live in. I wish that I could just trust the cute little old man who seems like he just wants to play with my kid ya know? But it's unfortunate that I can't. Moral of the story people: teach your kids about tricky people, always be suspicious of strangers, and be vigilant while in public... don't get distracted like I was.

I get sick thinking about how that story might have ended differently if I just tuned my kids out for a minute so I could get the shopping finished. I'm so glad I kept an eye on him.