One of my favorite shows to watch with my teen daughter is “What Would You Do?” hosted by John Quinones. These are staged scenarios in which you learn who will and who won’t get involved.
We oftentimes talk about what we would personally do, had we been that in situation. One doesn’t expect to get the opportunity to actually experience something similar but that’s just what happened last week. The only difference is that it wasn’t staged.
I had picked my daughter up from her driver’s education class and for some reason, without any thought to it, took a different route home than I usually do. As we passed an area with dim lighting and an open field to our right, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a group of teenagers.
The lighting made it difficult to see what was going on. But they appeared to be in a circle, hovering over someone. The only thing that stood out was one of the teens wearing a long, dark trench coat.
As soon as we passed, my daughter (who was listening to her iPod), looked at me strangely. I asked her if she could tell what they were doing and she said no but that it looked odd.
Almost immediately I got a nagging feeling in my stomach. Something didn’t seem right. We were less than a mile from our house and I continued to drive. But the unsettled feeling continued to grow, to a point where my stomach actually hurt.
By the time we got home, I told my daughter to go inside and let her dad know that I was going back. She looked at me like I was nuts. But I knew something wasn’t right and so I was faced with, “What will you do?”
Would I ignore the pit in my stomach, the thought that someone could be in trouble. Or would I do what was probably the right thing, see what’s going on.
Long story short, I am so glad that I decided to respond. As it turned out, a teen boy had been left in the field, his pants partly down. I called the police and the mother of the boy showed up.
It is still unclear as to what happened. He was apparently drunk. But there was likely more to the story that I will never know.
I did receive a nice compliment from the police officer for deciding to come back and do something. And the mother thanked me.
I guess the point of this is that we see so many stories where people walk by and do nothing when they should. We have become such a compassionless, non-involved society in so many ways.
When I went back home and told my daughter what happened, I believe it taught her a powerful lesson. Some things demand our involvement. It’s right and it’s moral. Of course, we also talked about using caution and recognizing when a situation may be dangerous.
Now my question to you…what would you do?