Elder Mangine, a felon???

Raise your hand if you've ever had to take a screaming kid out of a store/mall/playground etc. *raises hand* It's kind of embarrassing, but most times you just get sympathetic looks from all the other parents as if to say, "I've been there." Not so much today.

This is an ABSOLUTELY 100% true story that happened to us today. Our family went to the Southpoint Mall to just walk around a bit, let the kids have lunch and play in the indoor playground, etc. It was going smashingly until Nico had a tantrum and it was clear we needed to get home for naps. Nico was pitching a huge fit and the acoustics up in the food court are such that it just resonates and resonates and resonates for all to hear. Nick and I are actually pretty sensitive about these kinds of things. We don't feel like our kids should have the right to ruin everyone else's meal when we are out in public, so we usually very quickly remove them from places if they decide to throw a fit. (Ask Bonnie Kovacik about Baba Ganoush some time.) So Nick snatched up Nico to bring him out to the car while I brought up the rear with Nia and Josiah.

So picture it... Nick, carrying out a kicking screaming black kid. Can you see where this is going?

I am walking through the parking lot to our car and I see flashing lights near our car, a small crowd on the sidewalk nearby and a little girl yelling across to her dad, "Did they arrest him?"
Still didn't really click with me. I get closer to our car and realize that the flashing lights are actually the mall security blocking OUR CAR in so Nick (Elder Mangine) couldn't take off with Nico. I get there and I am asked by a woman, "Is that your husband and son?" It all quickly made sense to me and I realized that everyone was thinking that Nick was kidnapping a child from the mall. He had explained that we had adopted Nico, but then offered the information that I would be coming along soon and could verify his story. So they waited for me, and I did (in fact) verify his story. They believed us and let us go, but the story doesn't end there.

When we got home our answering machine light was blinking. It was an investigator from the Durham Police Department. They apparently used our license plate to track us down and wanted to verify our story. Apparently there were other people who had called it in from the food court, as they knew all about the tantrum starting there and lasting all the way through the mall, across the parking lot and to the car.

If I was looking in at this situation from the outside, I might have been inclined to jump to conclusions as well, so I do understand how this happened. We can see the humor in this situation, but the first thing Nick did when we got home was print out a family picture and put it in his wallet for next time.