I made the difference in the life of a child today.
 

I really hate that "made a difference" saying. Really hate it. Not sure why I used it other than sarcasm since I hate it so much.

But anyway, I finished up a meeting today and was walking home when I stopped at the mall. I had to send an e-mail and it's a good place to people watch, so I bought a frozen yogurt (I love that pay-by-the-ounce frozen yogurt concept) and found a seat near the escalators.

At one point while I was working, I ended up noticing a girl who was about three years old, and it became obvious that she had no parent around. She was just wandering around. So long story short, I went and got her, and after about ten minutes I and the Cinnabon counter girl and another couple managed to reunite her with some rather frantic parents who'd lost her and were literally running around the mall trying to find her. (The Cinnabon girl didn't know how to reach mall security, which I found rather interesting, and we found the parents before we got word to mall security.)

But the part that got me thinking was that there's a risk for a 40-something guy to go approach a lost three year-old girl. If you walk up at the wrong time, you get tackled by a parent and get arrested as a stranger abduction pervert and you end up on the sex offender registry after being brutalized in prison for a period of time of not less than six to ten years, and no one's ever going to believe that you were trying to help. So as soon as I confirmed she was lost, I immediately steered her toward the teenage girl who was running the Cinnabon, because she would qualify as a trusted person more than I would. Kind of sad, really.

So how many ounces of frozen yogurt does it take to entice a 3-yo to come over and talk to you?

Was she hot?

The Cinnabon girl.

You're quite the perceptive guy, good for you. It's a shame the Cinnabon girl didn't know how to contact security. In the times we live now it's quite necessary to know these things.

Oh, and what the hell is Cinnabon? It sounds like something Clark Griswold came up with along with his non-nutritive preservative.

It is. On a local radio station recently, they were talking to male daycare employees who weren't allowed to change diapers, or help with potty training.

On one end, good for them, who really wants to do that? On the other... Seriously?!?! So is every man now a suspected pedophile?

I had a 7 or 8 year old boy ring my doorbell last year, he was walking home and he wanted to use my phone. I step outside and hand him my cell phone, no answer. He says he lives a few miles away and asks for a ride home. I told him that there is no way I could do that. I wanted to help him, but I knew if I gave him a ride, then I would most likely get thrown in jail as a pervert, kidnapper, whatever. He seemed sad and walked off.

It helped that I'd topped it with Reese's Pieces.

I'd have taken the risk.

Yes.

:p

Louis CK explains Cinnabon the best, language NSFW

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No, she actually a little overweight.

Oh, her. Let's just say that if you work at Cinnabon it's probably really hard to stay slim.

Wait a minute. I think she was under 18, too. I don't think I can talk about this.

Can you elaborate on this pay by the ounce frozen yogurt?

if this day in age wasn't so ****ed up, I would have given driven him to his house. But there is no way that if a stranger pulls up to a house with a kid he doesn't know, that it's going to end well.

If you don't know Cinnabon, you should immediately jet to the nearest city that has one. Cinnabon is one of the ten greatest things on earth.