Sunday, January 8, 2012

I Didn't Really See That ... Did I??

I didn't really see that ... did I??

It was around 10:30 this morning, and Daughter #2 and I were on our way to church. We were on the freeway when a car came up next to us in the left lane. He was staying right with us, side by side, and he almost seemed too close--as if he was in my personal space. I don't know why, but that's always a little unnerving to me, like when someone steps up too close to you in the grocery store check-out line.

Then I caught something else out of the corner of my eye--a brown bottle that he kept tipping up to his mouth. Was that a beer that he was drinking for breakfast?

Daughter #2 leaned forward to look around me and nodded her head emphatically. "Yep, it looks like it." She whipped out her ever-present cell phone. "Want me to call 9-1-1?"

I've always taught my first graders and my own kids not to tattle. I don't want to hear about it unless someone's bleeding or in danger, I always say.

I also like to give someone the benefit of the doubt. "Maybe it's just a soda that looks like beer," I said.

Daughter #2 nodded, but skeptically this time. "Like a root beer."

"Uh oh." I hung back and let him get ahead of me. "Is he weaving?"

Daughter #2, ever the voice of reason, followed the car with her eyes as it went slowly side to side, from the shoulder and back to the center line. "Looks like it."

As soon as she tapped in the numbers on her phone, I felt a sense of relief.

"Making that call could have saved someone's life, I told her."

Sure, maybe we got a perfectly innocent Sunday morning root beer drinker pulled over, and at the very most, cost him ten minutes of his day. But I was at peace with my tattling.

1 comment:

Rachel Schieffelbein said...

Well, like you said, "unless some one is bleeding or in danger." Some one could have been in danger here, (like you and your daughter) so it isnt' really being a tattle tale. :)