Tim, Silas, and Tyler left late on Wednesday night for the coast so that they could start fishing early the next morning. They arrived home yesterday evening and I went out to the car to greet Tyler.
B - Hey, buddy! How did it go?
T (smiling) - I got a dog.
B (wondering if I'm hearing five year old humor or if I need to kill Tim) - A dog? Like a hot dog?
T (laughing) - No! A dog!
B - Where did you get a dog?
T - A police officer.
B - (perplexed and starting to feel irritated that I'm hearing about a ticket or crash from one of the kids instead of Tim) Was there an officer at the fishing spot?
T - No.
B - Did Dad get pulled over or hit someone with the car?
T - It was at ... oh, I can't think of the name ... the yellow place.
B - Wheeler Dealer?
T - No, the one with the paint splatter.
B - Wal-Mart? When were you there? (knowing those stuffed animals are only handed out in a crisis) Why did a police officer give you a stuffed animal?
T (nonchalantly) - I don't remember all of it.
B - (trying to act like this whole thing is no big deal) Where's the dog?
T (pointing to the ground under fishing stuff) - Down there.
B (digging through the pile) - This one? It's cute. Why did the officer give it to you? (looking around for Tim or Silas, both unloading fishing stuff, and getting increasingly frustrated at the way I'm gathering information) Can someone please explain to me why my five year old has a stuffed animal from a police officer?!
I got the nutshell story at that point, then a longer version as I drove Silas to youth group an hour later. Evidently they swung by the store as soon as they left on Wednesday and the boys waited in the car while Tim went in. Then the store got locked down because a man in the parking lot was brandishing a knife. A man in the next row over from our car, just behind the boys.
Tim proceeded to spend then next 90 minutes in the store while drama unfolded near Silas and Tyler. At one point an officer announced over a microphone that everyone needed to leave. Fine, except where were the boys supposed to go? There were four officers with guns in hand near our car telling Silas to clear the area, so he did and told them Tyler was sleeping in the back seat. They sent Silas around the corner, then escorted Tyler, who woke up in the midst of everything, over to him.
The boys spent the rest of the ordeal in the back seat of an officer's warm car, safely out of sight of the knife-wielding man. They and Tim arrived back at our car at the same time once the situation was resolved, then they all went on their merry way. Tim, Silas, Tyler, and a dog. A stuffed dog given to him by a police officer late at night at the place with paint splatters.
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