The Nightmare of the Mall Play Center

Ok, so you are probably thinking that I am going to complain about the big kids that are too old to be in the play centers at the malls, trampling over the little kids innocently playing.... right?
But no, I am going to tell you about a very scary incident that shows what happens to those kids whose parents are NOT watching them. Hopefully anyone who witnessed this will keep a better eye on THEIR children next time they are at one of these places.

So, its Friday night and my cousin Anne and I decide to take the little ones to the mall for some supper and a little play time. We get to the play center and its ca-ray-zee as usual. But what else is new right? So we decide to let them play for a little bit anyway. I watched as Kara was pushed out of the way several times trying to get down the slide. I observed as these two bigger girls continued to run in front of her and rough house around. I watched one of their moms text away on her cell phone and the other mother was outside of the play center watching for a little bit then doing who knows what. The father of one of the girls sat there and watched his younger child. After a couple minutes I decided I'd let Kara play with the "sicky germs" long enough. I picked her up and headed over to Anne. Anne then tells me about this creepy guy in a leather coat and no teeth who had been sitting in the play area just watching the kids. She wondered which kid was his and then got totally freaked out when he stood up and just walked away, no child in tow. At that moment we looked at each other and decided it was time to leave. Not even 2 minutes later as we are strapping the wee ones in their strollers we hear a mothers desperate cry out to her daughter. "Katelyn? Katelyn!!!??" And then the other mother is calling out for her daughter too. They were gone. The father is explaining what his daughter was wearing to one of the mall employees. And in a matter of seconds people are gathered around searching for these 2 girls. Anne and I immediately looked for the creepy guy. We spotted him in the record store across the hall, by himself, lucky for him. Where did these kids go?

Of course, like any good mother would do for another mom we began walking around helping them find their children. One mom kept calling her daughters name out, fighting back the tears, she looked like she was about to collapse to the floor in disbeleif. The other mom clutched her baby in the middle of the mall, in tears, holding her face as if she might throw up all over the place. The father paced the mall. At that time I had this awful pit in my stomach, goosebumps up and down my body and I began to shake. I could not imagine the fear these mothers must be feeling.

Anne and I headed down to the center of the mall where we spotted the father with his daughter, he found her, but where was the othe girl? We followed him and asked where he found her, she was in the shoe store. Sure enough the other girl was there too. I raced back to the other end to let her mom know, she ran faster than a marathon runner to reunite with her daughter as other curious mall goers stared in confusion. And that was that, they found their children. This time.

It amazes me how quickly they disappeared like that. And gives me extremely creepy and eery feelings to think how they could have been taken by some freaky guy scoping out the kids innocently playing. This world is a scary place, and you just can't afford to take your eye off of your children for one second, not even one second. Anne made herself feel better about being an overprotective and "hovering mother" as her husband calls her! I think I will become even more of one now!

I did walk past both of the moms on my way out of the mall, both looked at me and waved with a look of pure gratitude for helping them, one even whispered "thank you." I felt their horror, their pain, I couldn't imagine what that must feel like to wonder if you were ever going to see your child again. It was like out of a freaky movie or something. But thank God it had a happy ending. And maybe if everyone with a child could experience something like this, there wouldn't be any more of those "big kids with no parents watching them" left alone in the mall play centers.