We Are So Doomed

Posted on | December 12, 2014 | 32 Comments

If you’re an optimist, you obviously don’t have young children, especially daughters. To be a parent in 2014 is to know for a certainty that the social fabric of our civilization is rapidly unraveling:

An 11-year-old girl from Arkansas gave her family the scare of their lives last week when she ran away from home after stealing $10,000 and jumped into a cab hoping to travel to Florida to meet a boy.
When Brent Waller discovered that his daughter Alexis was gone December 5, his first, terrifying thought was that she had been abducted. . . .
The 11-year-old girl had swiped $10,000 in cash from her grandmother’s sock drawer, crept out of the family’s Bryant, Arkansas, home in the middle of the night and hitched a ride with a stranger to a gas station in Little Rock.
Alexis then called a cab and asked the driver to drive her to Jacksonville, Florida, located about 830 miles away.
The girl said the taxi driver did not ask her any questions beyond her final destination and whether or not she had the $1,300 fare.
Alexis said she decided to make the long journey halfway across the country because she wanted to see a 16-year-old boy she met on vacation two years prior and had been talking to ever since.
The Florida teen said he knew nothing about Alexis’ plan. . . .

(Well of course he would say that, wouldn’t he?)

Police obtained phone records and were able to trace Alexis’ call to the Little Rock cab company, where officials said the girl wore heavy makeup and appeared to be 17 or 18, according to Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

(Parents: If your 11-year-old daughter is wearing heavy makeup, she’s planning to steal grandma’s money and run away.)

Before long, they reached the taxi driver the girl had hired, who told them they were driving in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia.
The 11-year-old’s parents immediately hit on the road, driving nine hours to pick her up.
In retrospect, Alexis Waller said she was glad her parents were able to track her down bring her home safe.
‘I knew I made a mistake after a while and I didn’t have a phone,’ Alexis told KARK-TV.

Isn’t that special? She steals $10,000 from grandma, calls a cab so she can run away to be with a teenage hoodlum she met on vacation two summers ago, but when she gets caught? “Mistake!”

She made a boo-boo, an oopsie. Just a lonely fifth-grade girl committing grand larceny to be with the 16-year-old boy she loves.

Doomed. We are completely doomed, I tell you . . .

For This Nightmare I Blame Al Gore, Who Invented the Internet http://t.co/h5viX7bmiS #tcot @instapundit

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 12, 2014

Category: Crime, Culture, Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption

Comments

32 Responses to “We Are So Doomed”

texlovera
December 12th, 2014 @ 7:41 pm

11 freaking years old.

I guess I should be happy that my youngest is 14-1/2???
Dianna Deeley
December 12th, 2014 @ 7:58 pm

I am in awe. That is the most criminal act of tween lunacy it has ever been my privilege to read about.

Whatever became of saving your lunch money to buy a bus ticket for you and your guitar to LA?

Oh, and I want to talk to her granny, too! Keeping that kind of money in your sock drawer and telling your granddaughter of it is an invitation to having said money pilfered, and not necessarily by one’s relatives!
robertstacymccain
December 12th, 2014 @ 8:00 pm

My youngest daughter just turned 12 and is in sixth grade so she’s out of the runaway fifth-grader risk group.
robertstacymccain
December 12th, 2014 @ 8:07 pm

I blame the Internet, cellphones, cable TV, bad parenting and the public school system, not necessarily in that order.
RS
December 12th, 2014 @ 8:14 pm

Bryant, Arkansas is not exactly “out in the hills.” It’s a rather decent suburb of Little Rock; very upper middle class. It’s easy to draw conclusions and infer causal relationships, but normally this sort of story has a mobile home up on cement blocks somewhere in it.
Adobe_Walls
December 12th, 2014 @ 8:47 pm

Actually age 14 through 26 are probably the hardest years.
Jim R
December 12th, 2014 @ 8:54 pm

My daughter is two years old. I’m considering buying one of those old nuclear missile silos and locking her in until she’s FIFTY.
Isa
December 12th, 2014 @ 9:03 pm

well, that kid is grounded for a year.
postaldog
December 12th, 2014 @ 9:18 pm

After seeing that picture, Kaitlyn Hunt is probably considering moving to Arkansas.
Guest
December 12th, 2014 @ 9:39 pm

Kids seems rather “precocious” (having developed certain abilities at an earlier age than usual). Harry Houdini (pre-Internet, pre-“meltdown of society) jumped a freight train at the age of 12 and disappeared from his family. And there was this guy:

Semaj Booker: In 2007, Washington 9-year old Semaj Booker really really wanted to see his grandfather in Texas. So he stole a car (which he learned how to do from playing video games) and led police on a high-speed chase. Police caught up with him and brought him home, but the next day he hopped a bus to the airport and snagged a plane ticket to Phoenix by using a fake name. Police picked him up when he tried to get to Dallas
Fail Burton
December 12th, 2014 @ 10:13 pm

What 11 yr. old in the history of all mankind ever looked like that? Yes, the body of a 17 yr. old and the brains of an 11 yr. old will say “See that horizon? Follow it for 1,100 miles, and step on it, I’m in a hurry.”
ErikEssig
December 12th, 2014 @ 10:24 pm

Doomed we are.
—
A bit OT, does anyone know if grandma got her money back? If so, is she dating? Asking for a friend.
richard mcenroe
December 12th, 2014 @ 10:29 pm

“rather decent suburb of Little Rock” ; see: Damning with Faint Praise.
Finrod Felagund
December 12th, 2014 @ 10:29 pm

She knew from the start deep down in her heart
She and Tommy were worlds apart
But her mother said “Never mind, your part is to be
What you’ll be”
richard mcenroe
December 12th, 2014 @ 10:31 pm

Stacy, you’re just entering the hormone tsunami window.

I recommend No. 5 shot to minimize collateral damage. If the punk is tough enough to come back after that, he might be a keeper.
Ruy Diaz
December 12th, 2014 @ 10:43 pm

But this is my ‘favorite’ part of the story:

“The Waller family now plan
to push for legislation that would require cabbies to ask their
passengers, especially minors, for identification.”

The girl is eleven years old. But her parents are not. What’s their excuse?
joethefatman
December 12th, 2014 @ 11:08 pm

I think I need to check my 11 year old daughters room.

As for optimism, I gave that up with my first daughter. And again with the second. Now I’ve given it up with my youngest.
joethefatman
December 12th, 2014 @ 11:10 pm

I prefer #4 buck. Let him try coming back after that.
joethefatman
December 12th, 2014 @ 11:12 pm

The only good part of arKANSAS was LRAFB.

No… I tell a lie.

That sucked too.
joethefatman
December 12th, 2014 @ 11:13 pm

A year longer than infinity would be my choice.
Wombat_socho
December 12th, 2014 @ 11:49 pm

Mine is 28 and has a decent collection of knives and firearms, to say nothing of a posse of friends and family who also appreciate those kinds of weapons. Not too worried at this point.
theoldsargesays
December 13th, 2014 @ 12:58 am

Watch out because she’s now approaching the “climb out the window in the middle of the night” risk group.
Kirby McCain
December 13th, 2014 @ 1:29 am

Slutty teen stars?
Art Deco
December 13th, 2014 @ 9:13 am

It has a silly name, but it’s actually a mid-range 3d tier city, rather like Syracuse, Des Moines, or Toledo. The whole urban settlement in toto has about 400,000 people in it. It’s a ways away from any larger city (Memphis is the only larger city within 300 miles), so it has some services you ordinarily do not see in a city of that size and with that level of affluence – e.g. a university medical center.
texlovera
December 13th, 2014 @ 10:01 am

Oh, I know that! The 14-1/2 year old is my THIRD daughter. Other two are already in college.

Fortunately, I have already seen the light at the end of the tunnel with the Oldest…
richard mcenroe
December 13th, 2014 @ 3:36 pm

s’okay if you don’t have neighbors.
richard mcenroe
December 13th, 2014 @ 3:37 pm

That light is getting closer, listen for the whistle…
richard mcenroe
December 13th, 2014 @ 3:39 pm

Krazy Glue on the window and subdermal RFID chip with LoJack…
Daniel Freeman
December 14th, 2014 @ 3:42 am

I think you can do much the same to a standard cell phone these days?
Joseph Shmeau
December 14th, 2014 @ 12:34 pm

I don’t quite get the “coming back” part, at least as regards this story. Romeo never left Jacksonville and says he had no idea what Juliet was doing.
Daniel Freeman
December 14th, 2014 @ 5:12 pm

Simone de Bouvier is kicking herself for being dead. And then kicking Sartre for good measure.
Fatherless
December 15th, 2014 @ 4:02 pm

12 to 35 seems to be years of inhibited decision making capacity for many girls.