Stealing Cokes at the Police Station

So if you read my last story you know that I was living in foster care and not loving it much. If this is the first of my stories you are reading welcome you can read the story "The Judge Steps In". But the gist is my parents got divorced and then proceeded to kidnap me back and forth for a few years until the judge had had enough and put me in foster care.

I honestly don't know how long I was at the foster home but it got a bit old. Mostly just monotonous I had nothing to do and nowhere to go. I was pretty bored. But I did have one daily mission. It was super secret and it made me feel like James Bond. Every day the social worker would call with an update on what was going on with me. Once I worked out that the call was about me I would sneak into the bedroom and pick up the extension line and listen in, No one was telling me anything and I desperately wanted information.

I found out that the Judge had a real problem. He had wanted to simply put me into foster care and then have my mom come pick me up but the State of Minnesota said that I could not leave the state without signatures from my dad and he wouldn't sign. So we were stuck in a holding pattern and neither me nor the foster home people were happy about it. Then one day the social worker had good news, it was all worked out. The judge had invented a crime that I had supposedly committed in South Dakota and issued a bench warrant for my arrest and filed for me to be extradited to South Dakota where he would give me back to my mom. I have always had a serious sense of right and wrong and I thought this was wrong and so I broke my silence on the other line and confronted the social worker over the phone. It accomplished nothing but it made me feel better.

The Sheriff was a nice guy who had dealt with my dad a lot by this point and they were some kind of friends, or at least the sheriff knew my dad enough to want to respect him in the whole situation. He laid down some rules. First was my dad and my siblings got time to say goodbye. They were supposed to show up and have a couple hours with me at the foster home. Second was He was driving me to the state line. It was how extradition worked there were no exceptions even for made up criminals. He set specific times for dad to show up and then mom and my Step Dad were supposed to come later. Then I would ride to the state line in his car and at the border he would give me to them. No matter how it worked out it was a crappy deal for me.

I was fairly miserable on the day, I did not want to say goodbye again, and I did not want to live with my mom, again. But I had no choice so I got up put away my blankets like I was supposed to, put all my things into the paper bag and waited on the porch for the sheriff. He was not the first car to show up. My mother was, she was hours early. I did not want to get in the truck with them, but I was a kid and again I had no choice. The foster home people were just glad I was leaving so they didn't care if things were happening out of order.

So in the truck I got but I was a very angry little girl and I did not want to be in the cab of the truck with my mom. My step Dad's truck had a canopy on it and a pass through window to the cab. I went in the back. I was staring out the back door when I saw my Dad's car slam on the brakes and turn around. Two things happened quickly. Mom climbed into the back and grabbed me in case I try to jump out, honestly I might have tried at that moment. Second my step Dad floored it. It was no competition he could not outrun Dad's car, It was a land yacht with a giant engine. I don't know how fast wer were going but I know that we were in a real high speed chase. Complete with adrenaline flowing through all of our blood streams.

The road went straight into town and my step Dad had been there before, he drove straight for what he thought was the police station. That town is one with a central block that all the streets go out from there. On opposite sides of this block were the police station and the post office. He went to the wrong one. Things got a little crazy outside the post office. I was wrestling with my mother trying to get out once we all stopped. My mom was screaming. She was telling my Step Dad to be careful because my Dad would kill him. And my siblings and my dad were getting out of the car. Let me say that as an adult I understand most of the perspectives in what happened next and I realize there really was no bad guy exept my mom. It was her lies about my dad that made my step Dad willing to do the things he did. He told me as much years later. As you read the next sequence know that it all happened in less time than it will take you to read it.

My sister was first out of the car and she wanted one thing, me. I was fighting for all I was worth to get out of that truck canopy. My Step Dad made it around to the sidewalk side of the truck and met her at the side window. It was open and had a screen. My sister ducked around him and was yelling at my mom to let me go and she put her hand through the window screen. I honestly think most guys would defend their truck and he did, he grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back. Not so hard that she hit the ground or anything but she took a couple steps backwards.

My oldest brother was full of rage and he went after my Step Dad for pushing his sister. My Step Dad was much taller and a grown man and he took one hit to the stomach before my dad got there. Dad was the last one to the party. I suppose he had to turn the car off and all that stuff. My mom's screaming got louder and more frantic as he got closer to his two oldest children and the man that had just put his hands on them. There was already a crowd of onlookers and my Step Dad was asking someone to get a cop.

I am not a person who tells other people how to live their lives but I will give you this piece of advice, DO NOT PUT YOUR HANDS ON A MAN'S CHILDREN IN FRONT OF HIM.

The next part happened so fast I didn't even see it happen. Dad walked right up to my Step Dad and hit him once in the face and he went down. Have you ever seen Crocodile Dundee when he does that one hit knock out thing. In my mind it was just like that.

My mom gave up on the wrestling match and got out onto the sidewalk to wake up her new husband. They had only been married a few months and I was the only one of us who had ever laid eyes on him. Let's just say he made a big impression on my siblings that day. Like I said as a grown up I understand his actions he was not a bad guy and it was an intense situation. I scrambled out of that truck and into my sister's arms. And about that time the sheriff showed up. He walked straight up to my dad and said "Hello Mr (enter my dad's last name here). Would you like to press charges?" And with that My alertish Step Father was indignant he was the one whose property was damaged and he was the one getting up from the ground he thought maybe he should be the one pressing charges.

Eventually we all got off the street and into the police station. They looked at my brother and my sister and there were marks where he had put his hands and that calmed him down a little. Before long all the grown ups and the sheriff disappeared and we were told to stay in the outer waiting area. My sister went with the grown ups.

I know that the sheriff was still a bit miffed that my mom and step Dad had stolen me from the playground in his town a few months earlier so they did not get a warm welcome from him but he was stuck with what the judge had said. They were back there a very long time and we got super bored.

All of a sudden my oldest brother said "I'm thirsty, let's have a coke." My other brother and I thought that sounded great but none of us had a quarter. Yes I'm "coke was a quarter" old. There was a lady at the glass window keeping an eye on us. So my oldest brother told my other brother to go tell her he had to go to the bathroom. So he did, no questions asked. The nice lady brought him into the back to a bathroom. Then he told me to put my arm inside the machine and feel for a lever. I found it and pulled it and a icy cold coke came rolling out. "Good, now do it two more times before they get back." Which I did and by the time she got back to her desk from bringing my brother to the bathroom we were innocently drinking nice cold cokes.

At the end of the day it just wasn't time for me to get my way and I had to leave with my mom and my Step dad. No one was charged with anything. They did concede to let my sister come with us which made things better and it also helped that the sheriff told them both not to come back to his town.

Thank you for reading this. I am always grateful for comments, likes and I never say no to tips.