It was a hot summer day in LA

My brothers and our neighbors sure got into a lot of trouble when they were kids, but no one imagined it would go far enough to put their mom and little sister’s lives at risk. It was a hot summer day in LA, and my brothers and their neighbor friends were selling lemonade on the corner of our street. I was probably three or four at the time and had been out with my mom. As we drove around the corner, our neighbor ran up to our van and frantically told my mom that the lemonade stand had been robbed. My mom was furious that someone would rob some little boys’ lemonade stand, and being the determined women that she is, quickly drove after the thieves in the direction our neighbor pointed us.
My mom caught up with the thieves and pulled up behind their stopped car. She planned on quickly giving them a lecture, confiscating the stolen goods, and returning to the lemonade stand to close it up for the day. So, she jumped out of the car and left me in my car seat directly behind the driver’s seat. I watched my mom begin talking with the teenage boys as one ran behind her and hopped into the car. Since she thought it would be a quick stop, she had left the keys in the car. Not very smart thinking on her part. So, the boy easily drove away with our car, and me in the back seat.
While we were cruising around the neighborhood, this boy’s friends were pointing guns at my mom as she laughed at them, insisting they were BB guns. Again, not very smart thinking on her part. Luckily the boys didn’t want as much trouble as they realized they were in when my mom informed them her little girl was in the stolen car. So, they lowered their guns and hopped in their cars to find their buddy.
Meanwhile, I was remaining perfectly quiet in the backseat of my van. I can’t really remember what I was thinking about the whole situation. Eventually, the driver saw his friends, parked the car, and jumped in with them, leaving me all alone and with a very full bladder. Being the smart 4 year old that I was, I got myself out of the car seat and the car. Then I began running up and down the street yelling, “They’ve got my mommy, they’ve got my mommy.” My neighbor was out looking for me by then and found me a few blocks away from home. Unfortunately for her, my bladder was still full and I wet on her front seat.
A telephone man who had seen everything called the police and then drove my mom home. My mom was horrified when the police told her that they weren’t just teenage boys, but members of a very serious gang. And even better—they weren’t just BB guns.