You could run that child over!

As a young teenager, I didn't believe that the adults in my life really affected me in any way. My thought process was that, no matter who I lived with or surrounded myself with, I would still be the same person. People couldn't affect my thoughts or actions.

Oh, but how wrong I was.

Last night I was driving home from class and noticed a giant box in the road with items strewn everywhere, across 2 lanes of traffic. A little further down the road there was a giant, and I mean giant stuffed bag of clothes-one that would wreck my car if I tried to run it over. I immediately thought, 'I need to call the police!' So I safely on speakerphone called the non-emergency police number and let them know of the situation and explained what intersections the items were at.

When I got off the phone, I thought about why I did that. Why did I call the police right away to tell them about that? I was already safely passed it! Then I had a memory from waaaay long ago of me and my grandma driving along the highway. There was a large box that was barely in one of the lanes, sort of resting on the white and as soon as she saw it she quickly reached for her phone.

I reminded her that she shouldn't talk and drive, so she gave it to me and told me to call the police. I laughed and asked, 'What? Why would I do that!'  She asked me if I had seen the box on the side of the road and I replied in my smart aleck way, 'Duh?'

She told me that an officer needed to come grab it so that nobody would get hurt. I laughed and said, 'It's only a cardboard box, anyone could run it over and it would just flatten.'

Then she got all wise and asked, 'Ahh, but is it just an empty box? What if someone was moving and it's full of their stuff? Or what if a child was playing in it in the back of their dads truck and it fell off! Then someone might run that child over and kill them!!'

At that point, I was a little traumatized, thinking, 'We almost killed some kid!' until I realized she was just making a point: we didn't know what was in the box and that it was better to be safe and call it in.

So I called it in for her and it didn't really cross my mind again until now. It's little memories like these that make me realize all the great people in my like growing up. Sure, I had a bunch of crappy and bad influences, but it was the great ones that really stood out and shaped me into a great person. (In case you didn't know, I'm a great person.) I love you gram!