Drama on a Saturday, or: My wife is a hero....

Because she saved a little girl's life last night.

Jackson went to his grand parent's house tonight, so we were free to pal around a bit. We went to the natural food market, stopped to get some coffee, and then were heading to a big box store to get some paint for the living room. As we were driving along, we spotted a 5 year old little girl running barefoot in the middle of the street, with a bunch of traffic backed up behind her.

"Is that a little girl?!" she asks.

"I think so," I say.


Before I could even get the car stopped, she was out the door. I stopped the car in such a way that I was blocking both lanes, and started to call 911 on my cell phone. Luckily, a few people on the other end of this started doing the same, and a few more people had their cells out as well. Jenn managed to get the girl stopped and sitting down between her legs, and she had a death grip around the little girl's waist. There was obviously something, I don't want to say wrong with the little girl, but you know what I mean.

I was still on hold with the cops. Actually, after being transferred to the police, the phone was still ringing. Jen had one of the other people who stopped to help get a big white teddy bear that Jackson swiped from his grandmother's office a few weeks ago out of our car. They gave it to the girl and that seemed to be calming her down a bit. About this time, in a weird twist of fate, a lady came up saying she knew the girl, because she taught at the local elementary school, and the girl's brother was in her class. Turns out the girl's name is Willow and she is autistic, and a runner. Teacher Lady calls home, and has her husband look up the parents phone number in the school directory.


I finally get hold of the cops, and give them the run down. I tell them we're between Yale and Sheridan on 101st, but that's not good enough. I have to get out, leaving Joseph in the car which is parked across the only two lanes of traffic. The lady finally gets hold of the parents. Then we wait. In the middle of the road. With an autistic kid with a giant teddy bear in Jennifer's lap, and me trying to direct traffic on one side of the road, and teacher lady on the other. With asshole drivers speeding by and honking and giving us dirty looks, which was freaking out Jen and the little autistic girl who wouldn't budge from her spot. The fact that she was even letting Jen touch her, let alone have a death grip on her, was a freaking miracle according to the teacher lady. Jen tried to calm her down as best she could. She would struggle to get up from time to time, but Jen just talked to her, and sang songs (which the girl didn't like very much, and lightly hit Jen on the head to make her stop) and rocked her, and let her play with the bear. We waited for what seemed like 20 minutes. And guess what? The parents showed up before the cops did. In fact, the cops didn't show up at all.

The mom shows up and explains that they were all eating dinner, and Willow was calmly playing with some dolls on the patio, right outside, where they could all see her from the dinner table. She was there one second, gone the next. Usually she goes out the gate into the neighborhood, but this time she scaled an 8 foot privacy fence, on the other side of which was 101st Street. They noticed pretty quick, but were coming their neighborhood, not outside it. We all have hugs and thank yous and what not, and I call 911 back to tell them not to bother, but can't get through, so I hang up. Some EMTs in an ambulance showed up right as we were leaving, and get the low-down from the mom. We go on our way, full of adrenaline.

Over the next hour, as we wander the isles of the big box store, The police department calls my cell three times. Twice to get directions to where the problem was, and the other to see if I had an emergency.

"I did," I tell this last one, "almost two hours ago."

"Yeah, were really busy tonight," she says.

Good thing I wasn't bleeding.
I can't tell you people how proud I am of Jennifer. She ran out into Saturday night traffic to help this poor little girl without batting an eyelash, while I stayed in the car, on the fucking phone. She's so good with children, and was the absolute perfect person to happen to be driving by, because she knew exactly what to do, or figured it out pretty damn quick. The second best person to happen to be driving by would have to be a teacher at the girl's school. How freaking awesome was that? But still. Jen did a fantastic job and I truly believe she saved that little girl's life.

I totally married the right person.

-JP