This last weekend, I was browsing through a bookstore and noticed two high school girls tucked away in an aisle, sitting on the ground, looking through magazines and drinking water. They must have been freshmen or sophomores, I’m guessing. I remember thinking that they looked cute, just hanging out in a bookstore on a Saturday morning.
A cell phone rang and one of the girls answered it. It sounded like a parent was waiting for them outside, so the girls got up and walked away.
Leaving the store’s magazines strewn all over the ground. Leaving their water bottles on the floor.
So what would you have done, if you were me?
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I did.
First, though, I’d really like to know how you would handle a similar situation. And what about your spouse? What would be his or her response? Different from yours’ or the same?
Leave a comment (try it…it really is easy! Just leave it under anonymous if you have trouble with it) or send me an e-mail: suzanne @ suzannewoodsfisher dot com
Tune in tomorrow for…the rest of the story!
I am divorced so I can't tell you what my spouse's attitude/response would have been, however I can tell you that I would have picked up the magazines and put them back neatly where they belonged and picked up the water bottles and thrown them away….That's just the kind of person I am. 🙂
I think I would have tried to catch the girls before they got up and asked if they could pick up. Then again I've taught for so long I tend to treat all kids as my responsibility. My husband would not have noticed…. he never does.
If I was close enough, and they hadn't gotten too far, I would have said "Excuse me, you forgot your magazines and water….please pick them up". If they were too far away I probably would have rolled my eyes, went "tsk tsk", and done nothing more.
SJGram
I probably would have thought "kids these days!" and either picked up the magazines or not done anything. Unfortunately, I would have wimped out on confronting anyone in these days of knee-jerk violence!
(I wouldn't have figured confronting/asking the girls would have done any good; I've volunteered enough to know how little respect for authority most teens today have. The ones that do wouldn't have left their junk in the first place.)
Hopefully your story has a positive ending!
I would have cleaned it up.
Dan
I believe, The best thing I can do is to pray for them. They might ignore me, laugh at me if i am going to tell them that what they is not right but they are powerless against my prayers for I know that God will work in their lives.
I believe, the best thing I can do is to pray for them!
Being a non-confrontational person, I would have shaken my head in disgust and then picked up the magazines from the ground and thrown away the bottles. I am eager to hear what happened so I'll tune in tomorrow. My husband might well have said "Hey, you left some things here. How about picking them up?"
I would have had no problem in telling the girls in front of the parents, they had made a mess and need to clean it up. I would assume the parents would have been on my side. As for my husband, he wouldn't have even noticed. He would step over it and move on. Probably because he would be on his cell phone–even if it was a book store!
Good job, my friend. You did the right thing. So, you wonder why the girls were so inconsiderate of the store property? Just look at the reaction of that "dad". I thought being a parent was literal, but not in this case. What an example. I better stop spouting off, the more I type, the more upset I'm becoming!