I’m 21. Male. You could say I’m a pretty normal person. You could also say I’m an idiot. What I’m going to write about now is probably a case for the second option.
I don’t want to bore you with details so let’s get right into it. I had some free time this afternoon and went to the mall to try and waste some time. I just wanted to check if there were any new books, gadgets or things like that. Nothing special.
I was just outside a technological store, checking out the overpriced smartphones and earphones when I saw him. A little kid (about 6 or 7) was crying his guts out just a few steps away from me. I assumed he was lost, and, being completely honest, my first reflex was to ignore him and let the security guards take care of reuniting him with his mom.
Minutes passed and no one… absolutely no one even tried to say something to him, they just watched and some even laughed. This made my blood boil. I then decided to say something to him and, at least, try to calm him down. “Hi” I said. I can honestly say I have some experience with these kind of things, I have two sisters quite a bit younger than me. He used his shirt’s sleeve to clean his watery eyes, looked at me and said “hi”.
“Are you lost?” I enquired. “Yes” he said, with a really sad and shaky voice. At this point I just felt I had to help him and do my good deed of the day. “Alright then, don’t worry about it. Come with me, I’ll help you find your mom.” I said. He just answered with a “Really?” with his eyes wide open and with a huge smile.
Before I continue…. I live in a country where the problems with pedophiles caused a huge impact. I’m not stupid, I knew this of course. The way to hell is paved with good intentions, but I felt I had to help him even if I ran into some risks. I mean, what could possibly go wrong ?
He took my hand right away. It made me a little bit nervous… What would I say if his mother found her son grabbing the hand of a complete stranger going to god knows where? Anyways, we started walking to the customer service counter. And on our way there, we passed outside an ice cream shop. The little guy stared at the countless colors and flavors as if he hadn’t seen something like it in his entire life. “Do you like ice cream?” I asked. He just nodded without losing sight of the ice cream. I checked my wallet and had about 10$ left. “What the hell, I’ll buy him an ice cream” I thought. This is where the journey to Mt. Doom starts.
He was a very nice kid, we talked a lot and about a lot of things while buying his ice cream. He ordered a vanilla cone. We continued walking to the customer service at a really slow pace, his eyes were dry by now and you could tell he was kind of enjoying all this situation. We were about to get there and he told me he wanted to go the bathroom. He did what you usually do in there (I held his ice cream in the meantime) and he came out of the cubicle. His mouth was completely dirty and filled with a white vanilla moustache. “Hey, you have to clean your mouth first!” I said, which he took as an invitation to play. He ran out of the bathroom with his ice cream on his hand and laughing his ass off.
I started chasing him, and a few seconds after leaving the bathroom (it was really close to this customer service counter) he tripped and fell to the floor. He obviously started crying. And, oh boy lucky me, his mother was just standing in the counter with a terrified face. Oh and, of course, she was staring directly at me with a murderous intent.
BUT WAIT, there’s more!
That angry face turned into one of complete and utter despair when she realized his son had his face completely dirty with a white substance (funny, no one knew where his ice cream was), after running out of the bathroom while being chased by a grown up guy. Shit.
“HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! MY SON IS BEING ASSAULTED!” she said in a non-too friendly tone. I couldn’t even finish saying “Please let me explain” when a police officer had already taken the boy and handcuffed me. His colleague took me and brought me to the outpost they have outside the mall, while I infructuously tried to explain to him what happened.
I knew things were starting to get really bad when the officer told me “Ok, young man. Confess what you did and this is all gonna end up real quick”. I told them what I told you just now. They laughed their asses off. “Yeah sure, and this guy right here [he pointed at another cop] is Bigfoot’s cousin”. I almost told him I wouldn’t be surprised, since he wasn’t the skinniest guy around. Thank god I didn’t.
Anyways, I was there for a good 45 minutes and then someone knocked the door of the police van. It was the kid and his mother. She had the same “unfriendly” face she had before. The kid though, to our surprise started talking, and in a spectacularly mature manner. “I’m really sorry! You tried to help me and I caused you a lot of trouble! I’m really, really sorry!” The cops asked him what happened, and he said pretty much the same thing I did. Hence, I was released. I almost kissed the damned kid, but then my brain started working and decided it might’ve been a little bit inappropriate.
TL;DR : Helped a kid, someone confused me with a child molester, got arrested and karma saved my butt.
