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What if this whole thing had been a ruse?
Okay, whoa there, Nellie.
Those were some serious assumptions to make, not to mention incredibly dramatic and probably something you’d find on a made-for-TV movie and not in your own family.
But the urge to do a little research lingered, and when the phone beeped in my ear, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Saved by the emergency.
“Hello?” a female voice came through the line.
“Hi, this is Charlotte Oaks 911. Do you need police, fire, or medical?” I asked.
“Police, please.”
“Okay, what’s the location of the emergency?”
The woman rattled off the address of the store she was at, hurriedly explaining that she was in the parking lot and needed an officer to meet her by her car.
“Okay, slow down. I’ll get help to you soon,” I advised, typing notes as I spoke. “What’s going on there?”
“I need an officer to here to help me with my son. He’s being combative, and he doesn’t understand the seriousness of the situation,” she advised in a Northern accent that suggested she wasn’t from around here.
“Does your son have any weapons?” It was the first thing on my mind, knowing if the son was pointing a knife at his own mom, we’d send every officer we had to make sure they both got out of this mess without a scratch.
“Weapons?” she shrieked, seeming completely appalled. “Why would he have weapons? Ma’am, my son issix.”
I blinked, my hands lifting from keyboard as I mentally replayed the conversation. The question seemed perfectly justifiable. She hadn’t mentioned he was only six.
“Let’s back up,” I said, calming my breathing since we were now dealing with an unarmed six-year-old. “What’s happenin’ with your son, ma’am?”
“We just finished grocery shopping, and he’s refusing to put on his seat belt. He’s ungaging in really unsafe behavior.”
“What’s he doin’?” I asked, typing what she’d said into a shortened version for the officers.
“I just told you! He’s refusing to put on his seatbelt! I need an officer out here to put it on him or tell him he needs to listen to me and do it himself, if he’s really a big boy. He seems to think he can do whatever he wants now that he goes to school like a big boy, so maybe the officer should tell him even big boys wear seatbelts!”
My eyes drifted closed. “Ma’am, I’m sorry. This is not an issue one of our officer’s can respond to.”
“Um, why not?”
“Because it’s not a criminal or police matter.”
“How is it not? It’s illegal for a child to be unbuckled while someone is driving.”
“Are you drivin’ right now?” I asked, keeping my tone as even as possible.
“No, I’m in the parking lot.”
“Okay, so there’s no crime established.”
“I want to leave this parking lot before my ice cream melts, but I can’t do that until my kid puts on his seatbelt. It’s a crime for him to not be buckled.”
“Correct.”
“Then why won’t you send out an officer?” she trilled.
“Because, ma’am, it’s up to you as the parent to make sure your child buckles his belt before you leave the parkin’ lot.”
