An officer and too many children

Last Friday, I organized a field trip to tour the police station for our old playgroup. 15 (or so) of our families used to get together biweekly. I joined the group 7 years ago when my oldest was 3. Now we only meet a few times a year for enrichment type activities (aquariums, zoos, parks...) . Most of the older kids (3rd grade up) no longer attend. Many of the kids are homeschooled and the rest attend school with my girls who had a teacher workshop day.

Of course the one time I plan something a huge freakin' storm arrives. The news looked very bleak Thursday night. The forecasters were predicting 12-24 inches at least. This was going to hit us, hit us hard. Do I reschedule? Do I wait and see what happens? What do I do???

Every school district in the county cancelled classes. The AFA, ARMY bases and city were all on delays. But there was no snow on the roads. I made an executive decision that we would continue as scheduled and whomever showed up would be fine. Of course, I was praying that someone would brave the cold, snow/sleety, yucky day and join me.

An officer called 30 minutes before the tour. He was assigned our group at the last minute and assumed we wanted to reschedule. He sounded less than thrilled.

As the different families walked through the door I could sense his apprehension. "Wow, there are a lot of kids" "Oh more little guys" "Uh...Um...Wow..Yeah..Um""

He herded us into a community room and made a head count. 49 children (many under 3) and 10 moms.

Immediately one bright eyed little boy raised his hand and asked, "Do you shoot to kill?" The other little boys joined in: "Have you ever killed anyone?" "Can I hold your gun?"

It was evident that he not only didn't have any children of his own but that he hadn't spent any time with small children, ever.

The children had a blast. They were handcuffed, put into cells, played in the squad car, turned on the sirens.... The poor officer tried. He really did but he just didn't get the children.

He had them play with radar guns and the DUI blow tester things as he talked about them. He began talking about DUIs. "We use this to see if a driver has had too much to drink" As he continued on his lecture I could tell that many of the children had no idea what he was talking about.

One little girl raised her hand "Ummm... scuse me...my mom only lets me dwink milk or water I can't have Sprite." Many of the children began to list what they are and aren't allowed to drink. The officer is dumbfounded. "Umm..No that isn't what I mean...Um.." One mother begins to talk about alcohol and drunk driving. The children clearly didn't understand. "My mom goes to Starbucks everyday. She says not to tell daddy. I think she's drunk. Mom are you drunk?" "Hey, my mom goes to Starbucks too. Can I keep this blower? I want to test her tomorrow."

The highlight most disturbing portion of the tour was when the officer brought out the arsenal of firearms. He had huge machine guns, rifles, shotguns, little guns, flat ones, yellow ones, all kinds of guns. He told stories about each and every one. "This one shoots through walls and cars", "This one is simiautomatic, this means the bullets keep coming out as you hold down the trigger"and so on... The boys were enthralled. The mothers were less than thrilled. He did give a (very) brief discussion on gun safety. And he did say, many times, that kids should never touch a gun. But, man oh man, did he glorify his guns. :S

I suppose the field trip was successful. It wasn't what I was expecting, that's for sure.