Girrl At Home

Must be a public holiday.
I end up at 7/11 one of my favorite over priced stores. For obvious reasons. Its open.Wooh.

$5 for 200gm of cheese (must be good  cheese!). All I want is cheese, I can’t live a day without cheese and tomatos. If not one or the other when my chips are down.
Three stores later I am flooded by the fluorescent glow that is heavenly, its warm inside. I have so many choices of ways to flavor my coffee you would think it was a java shrine. But we all know it is…
But NO! I have focus and mastery over this consumer-seduction, and besides I only have $5 and some change in my pocket. It must be cheese! And I can’t go to the local 24 hour store that is cheaper because my turning signal has decided not to work.
This is a dangerous adventure, I can only do on the back roads near Hastings and Commercial out of police site.
When I get my price lump of cow love, a girl wobbles in to the store and straight  to the cashier in front on me. Usually taking this as a  ‘consumer offense’  I size the situation up.

She is a beautiful teen, pierced natural hair, blue contacts and high as hell. At first  glance,  head down with her steaming cigarette barely crushed out I assumed she was a local hooker/crack head. Until I eye-ball her. So you have to imagine instead I was startled by the innocent face that looked back.
She muttered to the cash guy something. To which  he said ‘what’ abruptly without re-ajusting the agesd folds of brown skin to accomidate any foolishness. She said it two times more barely audibly. Then someone behind me interpreted the syllables as “Do you have a phone.”
The mans knee jerk reaction was “no”.
I paid for my prize and went outside where she was waving in the breeze looking around. I offered her a quarter for the phone. And she said loudly “Your awesome dude!” Re-iterated her happiness and floated over to the phone.
In most cases this would cause me no bother but something about this whole scene bugged me.
Firstly its Hastings, she is an attractive young lady obviously blasted out of her mind.
Secondly, its night and no one sees a random “dude” snatch women off the street.
I am not over-reacting as Vancouver has a huge problem with women getting nabbed and killed and it didn’t end with Pickton going to jail.http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/pickton/

http://missingpiecesshow.homestead.com/MissingPiecesEpisode7Archive.html
So as I am walking away I start thinking about this. And I wonder if it she would take it oddly if I offered her a ride to where she was going. Scenes bad 42 hour homicide invesigations go hrough my head.
I assured myself she would be okay and she will get home.
My conscience went back and forth like it never has before. And I ended up stopping  my car and turning  it around.  As I sat and rationalised I thought to myself I can’t give her a lift in anyway,I have no turning signal which makes it really unsafe for her and me in traffic. I don’t mind weaving through back alleys a few blocks from home to get cheese but maybe she lives in Burnaby?
As I toyed with this I without thinking flipped my turning signal and it turned on. Weird! I thought. Okay if this is a sign I guess I better go back I went back but she wasn’t there.
I slightly scorned myself. Maybe offering a ride would set up a bad habit for her maybe she would trust the wrong person one day and I should just let her make her decisions. Besides! She was old enough to get high and drunk.
After all that I guess it made me think. The world has changed. What does it take for people or a community to care, to know one another to know that we are all okay?
Are we that much of a business world a girl/woman can’t use a phone to perhaps get home?
I am sure the after effects of missing kids are hard hitting but I think its simple things that help prevent it.

How can a capitalist society become a community again if not for our our good feelings but for our protection from predators? I know change is simple and small but that’s all it takes.

Why can’t there be places that are in every 4 blocks hosted by volenteers that have been reference and criminal checked and are safe places people can go to when they need some help that is basic and isn’t something police will attend too. Must teens and such are too afraid to approach police fr help unless things go really wrong. They are afraid of being arrested for being high/drunk but they need help once in a while too. Kids make mistakes and need to have mentors they can fall back on.

Even if  a safe space is too far stretched even extending the helping hand can do it.