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We Was Robbed
byRosanne Welch
When the city gets too tough, the tough go hiking. That's the motto in our family. Whenever we want to escape the traffic or the politics or the noise, we trek on over to one of the wonderful parks that surround Los Angeles and watch our three-year-old son Joseph romp around in the woods. Lots of his stories begin with "We went for a hike today and saw a rabbit," or a duck or a squirrel, but today Joseph's story ended with, "and we was robbed."
Joseph was the first one to get to the
car after an hour's worth of wandering the lake around Franklin Canyon, watching
the ducks waddle and checking out the current crop of castor beans.
He called back to us that there was "much glass on the ground"
which made me wonder if we'd driven over a bottle when we parked the car.
And if we had, why hadn't I felt it?
So my first worry was for the tire, hoping it wasn't flat.
But when I reached the car, Joseph was rounding the passenger side and
saying, "There's a hole in your window."
I raced up to the car and saw the
mosaic that had once been the passenger window and I realized what he was still
trying to comprehend. Someone had
broken in while we were hiking, grabbed our portable CD player AND the book on
CD that was inside it that I'll have to pay the library for AND a laptop
computer case that, thankfully, no longer held a computer, just maps and
assorted hiking utensils. As my
husband walked back to the Nature Center to report the incident and I hung out
by the car with Joseph, I thought: It's not like this stuff doesn't happen
everyday in LA, so clean the glass off the car seat and count your blessings. 1.)
They hadn't bothered to check under the tarp in the back so they hadn't
taken my purse and 2.)
they hadn't stolen the car and 3.)
they hadn't hurt my son. Or
had they? Joseph kept asking
questions and I had to patiently explain what had happened – in three-year-old
accessible vocabulary. He was doing that thing that toddlers do, asking for
clarification and then repeating a new bit of information so they can catalogue
it properly in their cranium. Which
is when it dawned on me, they had stolen something from him as well.
"What's
wrong with the window?" Joseph
asked over and over. "Nasty
children broke our car so they could take some things."
"Why?" he asked over and
over. "Because
they wanted something we had," I said two or three times, all the time
reminding myself that yelling at him would just compound the problem.
But
his young brain was trying to comprehend it all and so he had to keep asking
questions. "Why didn't they
just open the doors?" he
asked. "Because
the doors were locked," I answered.
"Why didn't they unlock
them?" he asked.
"Because they didn't have the
key," I answered. "We
should go to the house where those nasty children live and tell them I'm angry
they took our stuff and then they will give it back to us."
But even at three-and-a-half he already knew the catch, "But I don't
know where those nasty children live. Do
you, Mama?" I don't. My husband and I have lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years now. We rave about it to friends and family "back home." This wasn't our first experience of robbery. We had a cheap, portable radio taken from our truck once and we were in a department store when the cash registers were robbed. So we know this stuff happens and we try to keep it all in perspective. But how do we help a three-year-old do that? How do I get Joseph's innocence back?
That's what I really want to ask those nasty children.
Do you know where they live? Or
why they weren't on a hike instead of a smash-and-grab?
Or when they lost their innocence?
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