Let's play a little word association game, shall we? I say "child's fingers found in a trash bin in Hawaii." You say, oh. my. God. Or what? What else is there to say?
I don't know if I've watched too much Law & Order SVU or what, but ever since police in Honolulu released details of the six fingers they think belong to a little girl between the ages of 2 1/2 and 4, my mind has been furiously jumping back and forth. Does this mean we have another horrible dead child story on our hands? Or is she OK, because this was some gruesome accident, but some loving person bandaged her up? Or, or, or ...
This is going to sound selfish, but I'd almost prefer the police wait until they have a solid story before they release these kind of things. I know, I know, there's a right to know, and after a decade and a half as a reporter, I know no newspaper would let that stand. But there's nothing as disconcerting as spending your day wondering if a child is being tortured or if a child is dead, all while hoping that the kid is really OK, and there's been some strange mix-up with the trash from a hospital ... I know, wishful thinking, but it's worth throwing a happy thought out there, right? Semi-happy?
So here's what we do know. The fingers were found by a woman who was poking through the trash for items to recycle at a housing complex in Honolulu. She's not a suspect, just someone who seems to have been hit by the hard economy.
There have been no reports of missing children in the area. Which I suppose is ... good? No one actually welcomes news of missing kids, right?
Ugh! I don't know, folks! I think this one is going to weigh on me for a long, long time. I don't want to be that person who immediately starts thinking morbid thoughts. But we live in a world were addict moms are accused of selling their daughters for drugs, and celebrities are accused of punching random women in the face just because. Screwed up things happen every day here in America ...
Be honest, what's the first thing that popped into your mind when you read those words?
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