Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Bits and pieces

We went to the fair again Monday night to watch those very loud truck and tractor pulls. I do enjoy them for a little while but the temperature Monday was 97 and it was still humid and in the upper 80's for this. Factor in that my niece from NJ, whom I love like my own, sat with me (or should I say on me) the entire time.



Now I think I can talk about that couple that were sitting by us at the fair Saturday night. This perfectly normal looking couple sat down by us and I didn't think anything of it until after a few minutes and I noticed they were falling over. Not just drunk falling over, something worse falling over. The woman was the worst and she sat the entire 2 hours with her mouth open, her eyes closed and one or the other of her children catching her before she completely fell. She had very obvious needle marks all over her arms. Her son, who I guess was about 6 or 7 sat beside his parents the entire night and once in a while he would say "dad" or once in a great while "mom" to which he got his head patted and no other response, because they were too out of it to respond. The daughter, who was about 11 or 12 walked by every once in a while with some friends and would stop to sit mom up better, pull her clothes on right or get her hair out of her mouth where she had caught some in her latest near fall. I was sick about them the entire night. If they want to screw up their own lives more power to them, but they have children and those children have to live with this. It is hard enough to be an 11 or 12 year old girl but to have to take care of your drugged up mother in front of your friends had to be horrible. I was daydreaming that the parents would wonder out in the road and get hit by a car on one of their trips to the "porta- potti's "while their kids were watching the derby. It couldn't be any less stressful than what their lives are going to be anyway. Instead I had to watch those children walk away with their parents, probably to get in a car one of them was going to drive home. We were sitting in the front row, with members of the local sheriff's office all around. They were watching this couple a little, but I'm sure they were as helpless as I was. I actually was trying to figure out what my chances were of trying to get a Judge to understand it wasn't really kidnapping since I was trying to help them. I knew that wouldn't go over well either. In the end I could do nothing but watch them walk away and beat myself up over and over because I didn't do something. I wish there were real superheros with real cool capes......

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

About that family - I wish mental abuse, which that surely has to be a form of, would be viewed as just as dangerous as physical abuse. At least then you'd be able to have social services come & rescue the kids. Hard to watch that & know there's nothing you can do.

kim-d said...

Oh my gosh, talk about "it ain't for the faint of heart." I feel more than a little sick after reading that. Why do these people have children. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. And ya know what's really sad? Those two children probably love those sad excuses for parents just like you and I love our parents. Because they may not be much, but they're all they have. Once ya get past the lump in your throat, couldn't ya just cry?

kim-d said...

I cannot get this out of my mind...