My baby girl wants to be a teacher when she grows up. However she doesn’t need to wait till she is fully grown to be a teacher because she is already teaching me and she is only 16!
This week, while driving home from a doctor’s appointment, in heavy rush hour traffic, on a major highway, she turned on our national radio station. She said that she was sick of listening to pop music on the radio stations we normally listen to and wanted to hear some engaging conversation.
Smart girl!
Here is a paraphrase of what we heard. The radio host said:
Don’t you know how it is? You’re exhausted after a busy day at work and as you descend out of the ebbing daylight into the subway system, you know that your commute home will drain you of any remaining energy.
You enter the platform to find it congested and the trains running late. What else is new? When your train finally arrives, it is full to busting and you have to squeeze past perfect strangers like you’re okay with this intimate contact. You will not be able to reach a hand bar for balance but never mind, because you are so crammed in, it won’t matter if you can hold on as the train comes to screeching and abrupt stops, because the other passengers’ bodies will keep you upright!
Then suddenly, between platforms, your train stops. Someone has pressed the emergency button. The first thing that crosses your mind, is this better be a good emergency or else….. and you fume silently hoping to get a peek at the culprit. If they look okay to you, you will give them your icy-cold glare; the one you save for special occasions.
As you wait for the emergency team, you realize that everyone is silent. They’re too exhausted to care. The emergency team arrives and they find the person who has pressed the button. It is a frantic teenage boy. He has dropped his iphone and in the crush of bodies, he cannot find it! He pressed the emergency button hoping that someone will clear the train so he can find his phone.
In the car, I groan. I say, if I’d been on that train, I would have throttled that kid! What is this world coming to when teenagers think a dropped cell phone is a bona fide emergency? Kids have no sense of…well just no sense!
My daughter gasps and says, mom, if that had been me on the train, searching for my iphone, wouldn’t you want me to find it? What if it had been a Christmas present and his parents had made him sign the Huffington Post cell phone agreement? Can you imagine his fear at what his parents will say, will do to him for losing a $500 + gift so soon after Christmas. Mom, I know you and you would have helped him!
“….and a little child shall lead them.” ~ Isaiah 11:6
I become silent, a little ashamed. Her words ring true and hit a nerve. If that had been my child on that train, how would I have reacted? How would my child have got everyone’s attention to help her? A disembarking passenger could easily have kicked the phone out the train door, losing it forever. And how would it have been found in the crush of bodies?
The radio host continues the story. He sums up my thoughts exactly saying what he would have done to the teen. However, the real story takes a different route. Apparently, the emergency team, upon seeing the distraught teen, immediately move all the passengers to one side of the train. With the help of the passengers, they all get involved and do a thorough search of the train. They FIND the iphone and return it to the beaming teenager. Then the entire train erupts into cheers and applause!
Not the typical reaction but the host comments that this event didn’t happen in NYC, Chicago or Toronto but in New Zealand. He says they must be a lot nicer down under.
My teacher-girl chimes in and says, of course they’re nicer in New Zealand! After all, aren’t they all hobbits?
Oh little girl! You’re so sweet and innocent and really smart and kind! Just when I’m tempted to judge some of the choices you make, choices different than what I would do, I see that the world is in good hands with you!
(I find out later that the radio host took liberties with the story. Lest you think Kiwis are laid back, they were vacationers on a tourist not commuter train. You will find the real story here.)
