Kansas: Fill & Download for Free

Sometimes you just have to take the risk of looking like a fool ...I was standing at the checkout lane in a grocery store on a Sunday in July about eight years ago. As I waited for the bagger to finish bagging my purchases and loading my wagon so I could leave, I watched various shoppers in the produce department several yards away from me.I noticed a man and possibly a pre-teen girl walking out of the department and heading toward the exit doors. The girl had her shoulders hunched up under her ears because the man was gripping her neck with one hand. She had a frightened look in her eyes, but wasn’t trying to attract attention for help. The man wore an angry expression and even though he was practically gritting his teeth, it was possible for me to read his lips. (This is where I should mention I have a severe hearing loss and can read lips fluently as well as body language.)“Don’t say a f***ing word,” I could see him say. It could have been a father having a disciplinary issue with his daughter or some other family dynamic. I don’t have any children and am aware that families can often do or say things in a manner that inexperienced outsiders like myself would find odd, but another parent might shrug off. This could easily be one of those situations and I should just mind my own business.As I pushed my wagon to the same exit door, I continued to watch the two, looking for a clue that would reassure me that I was simply overreacting to the situation. It was a busy day for the store, so there were many people in the area but no one seemed to notice or care about the angry man and obviously very tense girl.Following them out the door, I realized they were heading to the car parked in the space in front of my own car. Continuing to watch, I saw the man walk the girl to the passenger side of his car and push her shoulders down to place her in the car. By this time, I’ve reached my own car and I’m grappling with the question of whether I should say/do something or was I just making a big deal out of nothing.“Is that your daughter?” I heard myself blurt out loudly. Instantly, the man — already angry — whirled around and called me a c*** and told me to mind my own f****ing business. His face was red with fury and I caught a whiff of sour beer coming off him.“I’m simply asking if she belongs to you,” I replied, my voice shaking. “If you’re really a parent, you’d appreciate someone caring enough to ask, given what’s been happening this week, so just answer my question!”Earlier that week, a girl had been abducted from another store’s parking lot and found dead hours later. The store’s security cameras had caught it all on tape showing the girl and a young man walking side by side and getting into a car. I remember watching the news of that tragedy and thinking how innocuous it appeared on camera when, in fact, a horror story was unfolding in that parking lot.The man in front of me continued to yell at me, but I couldn’t tell you what he said because he was practically spitting his words making it hard to understand him. People walked by us in the parking lot and no one stopped to ask if I needed help. They probably thought it was a family issue and none of their business just as I had thought five minutes previously.“Can you prove she’s related to you?” I asked as I shoved past him to the passenger side of the car. The window was open and the girl was sitting very upright and staring straight ahead with tears in her eyes. “Are you all right?” I asked. “Do you need help?” She wouldn’t answer me. Just kept staring out the front window. I noticed both her hands were curled into fists.At this point, the man had gotten behind the driver’s wheel and was starting the car. “Get the f*** away and mind your own business,” he shouted at me.Now I was both scared and pissed. It might be a family thing, but it sure as hell wasn’t a run-of-the-mill ordinary type situation.I slapped the the roof of the car and told him I wasn’t leaving until I knew the girl was safe. Realizing he could just back out of the parking spot and drive away, I ran to the rear of his car and stood there shaking from either fear or anger.Right at that moment two women approached me with their wagons of bagged groceries. They had also seen the man and this girl in the store and found the situation suspicious. One was a mother of four children and the other was a middle school teacher. To them, this was no garden variety situation of a father with a daughter behaving badly.One of them called the police while the other went to the girl’s window to try to talk to her, but the man had raised the window. The three of us took our stand behind the car until a cruiser showed up. After hearing our story, the policeman approached the driver and told him to turn off the car and get out.At that moment, a woman ran up to us, very upset. Long story short ... the man was her ex-boyfriend and she had a restraining order against him. His intention was to “borrow” her daughter with the goal of convincing the mother to talk to him. He’d been following them and saw his opportunity at the store when they split up while shopping.Driving home, the words “is that your daughter?” played over and over in my head. When I pulled into my driveway, my husband came out to help unload the car only to find me in a blubbering mess, the shock of the situation finally hitting me.I thank God I didn’t shy away from “butting in” that day.EDIT: Thank you, everyone, for your kind comments. I do believe it was just a matter of being placed at the right time and place thanks to a Higher Power. I choose to think each of us would do the same thing at that time … or any time in the future.

Easy.Decline Harvard, MIT and Stanford right now.Re-apply to Kansas next year and explain on your essays that you have passed on Harvard, MIT and Stanford because you really want to attend Kansas.That will sort out your problem.

Kansas, not even close.What am I going to do with $50K in Hawaii?Actually, I’d rather live in Kansas on $50K than in Hawaii on $50K.The cost of living is literally twice as high!!!Let’s try a different site:Same story: you’d be about twice as rich in Kansas.I’m sure Hawaii is beautiful, but I’m picking Kansas. I’d get to live by Rebecca Gold and I’ll be twice as rich.