Dear Amy: I am a 54-year-old man. I was in a store, and as I was walking down the aisle, I saw a little girl about 4 or 5 years old who looked very scared and close to crying. I asked her if she was lost, and she nodded her head.
I told her we were going to find her mommy, and I took her up to the front of the store to use their public-address system.
While I wanted to offer my hand to her or pick her up to comfort her, I did not. I was afraid that if mommy came around the corner and saw me with her daughter that she would assume that I was trying to kidnap her.
I would not have had a way to definitively prove that my intentions were good.
What should I have done? — Confused
Dear Confused: When I have encountered lost children, I’ve asked them if they were lost and then told them, “I’m going to stay near you until we find your parent, OK?” This is a judgment call, but generally it’s not a good idea to take a child to another location (unless the child is in danger where she is). Instead, you should stay with the child, in case her mother is around the corner, looking for her.
You can usually flag store personnel from where you are, and if they believe the child should be taken to the front of the store, then you could both walk with her.
It’s not a good idea to pick up a child who doesn’t know you. You can comfort a child by crouching down to eye level and letting her talk to you while you wait for help.
Dear Amy: Our son had a wedding 400 miles away this past weekend.
Our 23-year-old daughter, “Annie,” has two dogs that she had to kennel for three days to attend the wedding with us. She is not yet self-supporting, but she does have thousands of dollars in the bank.
Annie is extremely “cheap” with her money and had announced that she would rather not go to her brother’s wedding than spend money on kenneling her dogs. To avoid this situation, we offered to pay $200 to kennel her dogs.
Annie has a boyfriend we detest (he cheated on her, hit her and is generally a “user”). He is not welcome at our house. She is aware of our feelings about him but has chosen to stay with him.
We found out that instead of paying the kennel to watch her dogs, she gave him the $200 to take care of the dogs. She proclaimed that it would have cost $300 at the kennel, so it would be cheaper to have the boyfriend watch the dogs. He doesn’t have a steady job.
We feel that she purposely funneled the money to him.
We felt she lied to us and that she should pay us back. We would rather have paid $300 to the kennel than give money to her boyfriend.
Is it wrong for us to ask for the money back? — Anxious Parents
Dear Anxious: If your daughter has thousands of dollars in the bank, then why are you supporting her, her dogs and her boyfriend? You say Annie’s boyfriend is a “user,” but she sounds pretty savvy too. (She knows how to work you, anyway.) You gave her $200 for kenneling the dogs, and she could probably argue that her boyfriend provided kenneling services. Unless you specified the venue in advance (other than earmarking the money), I think she’s got you.
However, if you choose to support her purchases in the future (I wouldn’t recommend it), you should pay the vendor directly and turn off the cash spigot.
If the cash dries up, her boyfriend might dry up and blow away too.
Dear Amy: Your answer for “Z in Chicago” about setting up conference calls in different time zones could have been better.
This is what Universal Time is for! I schedule things with people around the world, and it would be unreasonable to think everyone would know what time zone I am in, and whether I’m on daylight saving time or not. — Cherry
Dear Cherry: “Z in Chicago” was wondering about the proper way to set up conference calls in different time zones. Whose “time” should be used as the standard? Since reading your letter, I’ve learned that Universal Time has replaced Greenwich Mean Time as a worldwide time standard.
People interested in synchronizing their watches can check for a perpetual clock.
Send questions via e-mail to askamy@tribune.com or by mail to Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.
