What's your "I got separated from my parents at the store" story?

TL;DR: At 6 years old I got lost at the county fair and did not end up at an orphanage

It wasn’t a store. It was the county fair and I was about 6 years old. My 3 older sisters and I were going to the fair with my dad(the bravery of this man taking all of us on his own, I will never know) As we drove there my dad went over the main rules again. Keep an eye out for each other, don’t talk to strangers, and, most importantly, if we get lost from one another go directly to the Ferris Wheel and wait. Cool.

It was getting dark by the time we arrived. My dad found a spot in the family field area(basically an area off to the side where all the families would hang-out; kind of like tail-gating, but with blankets and no sports) where he said he’d wait for us and let us go to do our thing.

A while later, my sisters, highly irritated with me(they were teenagers and had to take their kid sister to all the kiddie rides) decided they’d get me a cotton-candy to keep me busy and we’d all go look for their friends. Now, I was over the moon with my cotton-candy. First off, I wasn’t supposed to have any per my dad’s instructions to my sisters. Second, it was the most ginormous cotton-candy I’d ever seen. And that was literally partly to blame for what happened next. As I trailed behind my sisters with my sugar-on-a-stick, I couldn’t really see over it.

After walking behind my sisters for a long time(ages for a 6 year old) they finally stopped. When one of them turned around, I went into complete and utter panic. These three girls I had been following, with my view of them obstructed by that blue monster in my hand at times, were definitely not my sisters! I started looking in every which direction, frantically searching up at faces I didn’t recognize. I was crying when I suddenly remembered The Ferris Wheel and took off in that direction...or what I thought was that direction.

I got to that monstrous machine, surrounded by loud and scary looking teenagers. I circled that thing so many times to no avail. At this point my face and hair was sticky with the mix of tears and cotton-candy. A lady and her husband noticed me and asked if I was lost. My dad told me not to talk to strangers so I didn’t answer her for a while. Her husband came over with a security guy. I decided to trust him and he took me to the ’Lost Children’s Booth’.

It’s important to note here that, as a child, I had an irrational fear of being sent to an orphanage(I blame Annie and Oliver Twist! for this) so when I saw all of the children in that booth, sitting on benches across the back wall and crying, I knew, with absolute certainty, that I was going to one and I’d never see my family again.

The woman manning the desk asked for my name, a parent’s name, and my home phone number. I gave it to her in between sobs and gasps for air, as I had begun doing that hyperventilating crying thing children so often do. She instructed me to sit with the other children. When I stood up to go, my face turned right into my dad’s stomach.

I had never been so happy to see him...I don’t think he thought the same of me at the moment. He looked soooo pissed. I wrapped my arms around him smearing blue stained tears across his shirt. He thanked the people there(in that weird way parents do when they’re upset with their children but are aware they are in public) lifted me up and carried me out. I watched that row of children, still waiting and crying, so relieved I’d not be going to the orphanage with them.

My sisters were sitting on the blanket when my dad and I reached back to the family area. My dad had obviously chastised them for losing me and I knew they were pissed at me, too. As we started to pack up and readied ourselves to leave we all learned that MauiKehaulani didn’t know the difference between The Ferris Wheel and The Zipper. That was the end of our fair excursion. As a matter of fact we never, ever did that again.

/r/AskReddit Thread