"Keep them goddamn babies out the street."

They say that today's youth are very advanced. I have to agree. Between the internet and the full-frontal culture that we live in today, these kids have probably seen and done more by age 5 than I did by the time i turned 12. We got toddlers hitting blunts and 9-year old stealing cars. Not to mention the many middle school kids I've talked to over the last couple years who never cease to amaze me with grown thoughts and conversations.

But right when I thought the children couldn't get any smarter, I was proven wrong. Earlier this week I was hanging out with a friend. We had plans to go eat and then go to a party down town. But, those plans were foiled right after dinner. They got a phone call from her brother saying that her neighbor's 3-year old was outside-it was almost midnight. Her heart dropped and she sped home to see what exactly was going on. When we got there, there was the baby, standing outside, with no shoes on. Her brother said he had been out there with the child for almost 20 minutes. When I saw her, all I could think was this.

My friend's brother said he banged on the door to see if anyone was home, but no one answered. He saw that the door was unlocked, looked inside and yelled, but no one came running.

We decided to take the 3-year old inside and bundle her up. When we asked her what was going on, the baby (who speaks very well) said that her mom was at work. She also said that her mom leaves her at home alone at night fairly often. I'm not sure if she was really understanding what was going on because 10 minutes later she was saying that both her mom and dad were in jail that night.

After contemplating what the best option was, my friend decided to call the police. She hesitated to do that in fear of the child being taken up by DFCS, but eventually figured that it was the best option. The police got there about 10 minutes later. Since they had guns and badges, it was safer for them to go ahead and go inside the abandoned home. I took a peek and saw grocery bags sprawled across the living room floor. Then, the cops opened another door and found the 3-year olds older brothers asleep. Neither one of them looked to be older than 10. So I'm looking at this scene like mommy must have dipped out and said: "ay, mama gotta go. if you get hungry, i left some lunch meat, cookies and potato chips. if you thirsty, i there's a 12-pack of Mountain Dew Code Red too. that's your favorite right? okay! mommy is leaving, byyyyyyye."

The cops said they found a debit card and an adress book in the bathroom. I guess mommy wasn't too bad, she had the decency to leave some money and important phone numbers for the little tykes.

About 20 minutes later, Mommy came speeding back into the parking lot and running up the stairs. She was greeted by one of the cops with "are you mommy? WHERE YOU BEEN!?!" She told the police that she "left her purse at her friends house and didn't know that she was gonna be gone that long." Only one response is needed for that.

The cops debated over taking the kids into custody and taking the mother to jail. But after being convinced that this might have been a one-time mistake, they elected not to.

I know I'm kind of making light of what is a obviously a serious situation, but damn. I kinda feel sorry for that 3-year old. At first, I just thought she was being a little bad ass by going outside. But my friend broke it down and insisted the child probably woke up in the middle of the night, looked for her mom, saw that she wasn't there, and went outside looking for her. Smart baby. Sad event.

I hope this doesn't happen again. The ending might not be the same.