Man, this long weekend went by so quickly!

I tried to avoid any shopping areas as much as possible - I can’t take how crazy it gets…people pushing, shoving, looking for parking spots, etc. After my family Thanksgiving, I was on the internet in the wee hours of Friday morning doing my Christmas shopping. I got most of it done, with the exception of a few people, thanks to Old Navy and Amazon.

On Friday we went to my in-laws to have lunch since we didn’t get to celebrate Thanksgiving together (Dave was on call on Thursday). We pretty much just vegged out (with a little more online shopping). My father in law had braved the crowds on Black Friday and was showing off the items he risked his life to buy at incredibly cheap prices. He wanted to go back to the mall for dinner at the new Red Robin. I think my love for a good burger is greater than my distaste for holiday shoppers, so we headed out to the mall.

After dinner, we took Ben to the kid play area. I sat and watched Ben while Dave and his father went shopping. The thing about mall kid play areas is that it’s next to impossible to keep your eye on your kid the whole time. There are a lot of things that can get in the way - the bridge slide, the climbing tree, fake cars, etc. Ben was having a grand ol’ time, climbing the slides and running around with other kids. I’m so happy that he’s finally started to interact with other kids, rather than playing off to the side by himself.

All of the sudden, I hear a woman scream, “OH MY GOD, SOMEBODY HELP THEM!!!” I looked at the woman and she was looking at the escalators behind the play area. Halfway up the escalators was a 10 year old boy…on the outside of the escalators, he was holding a 5 year old boy. I have no idea how that little boy got on the other side of the escalator, but the 10 year old was hanging on to that little boy, who was struggling and trying to get his feet on the thin ledge next to the escalators. One of the fathers who was in the play area climbed up the side of the escalators, up to the little boy, and took him from the grasp of the other boy. By this time, the boys were almost near the top of the escalator, which would have been horrible because once they reached the end of the escalator there would have been nowhere to go, and this escalator was pretty tall.

However, once the man got the little boy, they just stayed up there, because the man couldn’t hang on to outside of the escalator (which has that moving handrail going on) and get the little boy over the escalator barrier to the second floor. Fortunately, another man saw what was going on and came to get the boy. The father was then able to climb over the barrier himself. Once the father came back down, everyone cheered.

I have no idea who the parents were of these kids, though I’m sure that they weren’t related since one of them looked Latino and the other looked Indian. All the parents in the play area were concerned and shocked, so it was hard for me to discern if their parents were down there. It’s one of those things where the whole time it’s happening, your attention is on the drama, with peeks inbetween to keep watch on your own kid (who seemed oblivious to the whole thing). I think about that father, who risked his life to save the life of kid that wasn’t his own - little things like that often get overlooked in our society today.

When we got home, I asked Ben what he did that day. He talked about going shopping, getting toys, running around with kids, and then he said, “and there was a kid crying on the escalator”. I guess he does pay attention…

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