Holiday Hogwash

Horror Story winner Lucy at 3.

Every year, when our family gathers for the holidays, I brace myself for the part where our grown children grab a holiday beverage and begin the competition for the best child neglect story.  Oh sure, they have plenty of good stories to tell, like when one of them found a dollar, or another had perfect attendance for 8 days at school. There were lots of great times, if you include getting 3 meals a day and a bed, but now they like telling how I took their stitches out and made them clean toilets.  In their minds, Little Orphan Annie lived in a beachside resort and they lived in Guantanamo.
It's the price of having a lot of kids. Each one wants to be important, and they just didn't buy it when Mr. Rogers told them they were "special." Now they make up for it at our holiday gatherings.

Clearly the child pictured here is the all-time winner of the Child Neglect Horror Story Competition. Here is how it really happened:

On a sunny day in California we took 6 or 7 kids - I really don't remember - to a small city park playground. We parked the VW Van and they all jumped out and ran to the various attractions, including the swings, the sandbox, and the water fountain with the mud puddle under it. After an hour or so, I signaled my husband and we rounded up the kids and returned to the VW van. This was in the days before child car seats laws; we just stuffed them in like socks in a suitcase. We had traveled about 8 blocks when someone asked, "Where's Lucy?" She was our current 3-year-old. I replied that she must be in the back somewhere, but they couldn't locate her. A bad feeling settled over the van. Brakes screeched! I yelled some kind of Mommy expletive, and we raced back to the park. About a block before we reached the park we spotted her walking down the opposite side of the street.  Her dad and I jumped out of the van and scooped her up like kidnappers, while I scolded her for crossing the street!

That used to be the story. Now, when Lucy tells it, it goes like this:
One day, when it was only 35 degrees and it was raining, we took her and her siblings to the same park where escaped convicts hide out. We had no toys, so Lucy was playing with some boys and girls who had pocketknives and were showing her how to hide one in her shoe. Suddenly, she realized she could not see Mommy and Daddy, so she left the grassy knoll and went to the sidewalk looking for us. A big tall man wearing a trenchcoat and with hairy legs approached her and asked her if she wanted some candy. She got scared and broke the rules, crossing the street where a nice lady gave her directions to the homeless shelter. A giant dog attacked her and dragged her by the arm to a group of street people who gave her a turkey leg bone and let her warm up by their fire. That's when we showed up, and I screamed at her and gave her a good thrashing.

Lucy will tell the story again this year. By now I'm sure it's exciting enough to be a major motion picture.