Monsieur, j'ai perdu mon chemin

[Sir, I lost my way.]

by Joan Pontius.


I called my husband yesterday from work.

"Hi! Guess what?" He asked.

And I could hear it in his voice.

"We had a little visitor." He continued.

At first I thought we had been broken into or something, but there was something else in his voice. Something happy, but sad at the same time.

It was a little girl.

"Monsieur, je suis perdu." [Sir, I'm lost.]

So he let her in, and he called her dad, and gave her our photo albums to look at.

She was about 4 years old, and her friends had ditched her.

"Mon pere va etre fache avec moi." [My father is going to be mad at me.]

"Ah no." Said Filip.

"Si, il va me battre." [Yes he will, he's going to hit me.]

And Filip sort of tried to comfort her.

But then the guy showed up.

Filip said he looked like one of Eric Foster's drinking friends. Eric Foster looks like Popeye, so I guess that means this guy looked like Brutus.

Oh, and he was so grateful that it was Filip who had found her. You never know who it could have been.

And as they left, she asked, "Tu ne vas pas me punir, papa?" [Are you going to punish me, papa?]

"Qu-est-ce que tu pense to." He snarled in return. [What do you think.]


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