Lost and Found

What kinds of things do you usually leave at Wal-Mart? Maybe you leave your pen on the counter. Maybe you forget to pick up a bag as you leave the checkout lane. On a really bad day, maybe you leave your purse or wallet or whatever in the shopping cart. Many, many things you could leave behind. But some things you would remember. For instance, you wouldn't be likely to leave your child, right?

Right?

Your heir, your legacy, your progeny, your scion. The person who decides whether or not you go to the nursing home. You wouldn't leave your helpless, infant child all alone as you LEAVE THE STORE. Would you?

I didn't think so.

But someone did today.

Today, a lone child was found (appropriately/ironically enough) in the Infants department at Wal-Mart. Said infant was taken immediately into custody by management, as the parents were tracked down. Fifteen minutes after the baby was discovered, the family returned to the store. It had taken them THIRTY MINUTES to realize the baby was missing.

The police were called in, and management pulled the security tapes for review. It was determined that the child had been completely alone for fifteen minutes before the entire incident was reported. The family actually left the store not realizing who was missing. Astonishingly, the grandmother was the last one with the child. One can only wonder what seemed so important to her that she abandoned the kid.

The whole time that management and the police were going over the tapes, the family sat outside the office, arguing over who was at fault. "I left him with you!" "Naw, I left him with you!" Finally, there was an official judgement. As the grandmother was the last person to be with the child, she was the one considered legally responsible. So she was carted off to jail. In the meantime, the child was taken from the mother. I'm not sure how custody will be resolved. It seems that this runs in the family, though: the grandmother had, in her time, had several children taken from her due to the same cases of neglect. One of the children was the mother of the very child they abandoned today.

Hey, for some families, it's freckles that get passed down.