Accidents happen.
For example, I accidentally lost my kid once. Turns out he was just hiding from me in between the couch and the living room wall. Because why wouldn’t he be?
Also, I can remember my mom accidentally losing me once around age 4 or 5. In the library. I was trailing behind her, watching her shoes, as she walked down the long hallway between adult non-fiction and the children’s play area. They were these great 1980’s navy blue canvas espadrilles. Turns out, they must have been fairly popular at the time because after I’d been following them for a while, I looked up and they were attached to feet and legs and eventually a face that were not my mother’s. The shock and panic (mostly my own) was temporary. We eventually found each other, probably with the help of some kind-hearted librarian. And I’m sure was quite experienced in aiding temporarily misplaced children.
Ok, so maybe I lost her more than she lost me. Point is, accidentally losing kids isn’t all that uncommon. In fact, it recently happened to this St. Cloud mom too. She was waiting at the finish line of a 5k youth marathon that her 9 year-old son was running. She waited and waited...and waited some more but her son never showed. She started to panic. She’d never accidentally lost her kid before. Where could he have gone? How does a kid run a marathon one minute and then disappear the next? What in the actual fuck was happening?
Turns out he had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way and while his mom was frantically searching for him, he was actually running the 10k adult marathon. Apparently, as he neared the end of the 3.1 mile route, someone told him to keep on running. And so just like Forrest Gump himself, he did just that. And then without even trying, he won it. A 9 year-old marathon runner. Won a 10k. A full 48 minutes ahead of the runner up. Accidentally.
I mean, there are SO MANY parallels between this mom and son team and me and Kid A. I mean, I accidentally lost my son once and freaked out, she accidentally lost her son once and freaked out. Her son accidentally won a 10k marathon, my kid accidentally does stuff all the time. For instance, yesterday, he accidentally forgot to eat his carrots at lunch. Last week, he accidentally peed on the playground during recess. And this morning, he accidentally forgot to put his underwear on then accidentally sat on his little brother’s head.
The moral of the story? I don’t even know...maybe don’t have kids? Or if it’s too late for that, just remember that if you ever accidentally lose one of yours, it’s cool. They might be doing something totally awesome like accidentally winning a race. On the other hand, they may be doing something completely normal like accidentally taking a dump in a corner. Either way, they'll turn up, most likely just in time for another accident to happen.
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