Putting out an all-points bulletin!

After the big elopement excitement on Monday had calmed, we talked to our runner about the importance of staying home, talking about his feelings, and not just taking off where we are having to chase him or call the police. He told us that it is stupid to call the police, because he always comes home, and they are going to eventually turn it around on us and arrest for making a fake call to them. I don't think he quite gets that we are responsible for him and that if we do not know where he is, it is our job to call the police and it is their job to know we aren't kidding.

We worked through several different scenarios with him, then we started talking about how we feel and what we do when we don't know where other people in our life are. Lowell talked about how he would call the police if I were missing, or if Joshua wandered off and we didn't know where he was. It's not that we don't trust people to come home, it's just that when you are responsible for and care about someone, it's important to know where they are. Lowell went so far as to say that if the weekend staff didn't come in, he would call them, then call their home, and then contact the police if necessary. We were trying to make him understand that it wasn't because he wasn't capable of being out alone, just that it's not necessarily the most responsible thing to do - wandering off.

So on Tuesday, we had a meeting at the house with a lady from Joblink, who is going to try to get this guy a job (which we can all agree he needs). We were there with the case manager and were waiting on our supervisor. She was supposed to be there early so we could discuss some other issues, yet she was not there at the time the meeting was to start, so Lowell starts in on how worried he is about her. The case manager and I understand that he is just driving in the point a little on how we worry about everybody who isn't where they are supposed to be. So we join in and we go a little overboard. We tried to call her and text her, but unfortunately got no response, so we had to continue our little "worry charade." Lowell says, "I'm going out to look for her" and walks out the door. And we were honestly getting a little concerned, but not where we would call in a search party had we not been banging this idea into his head.

A few minutes later, the Joblink woman shows up. Lowell comes in a few minutes later, and she looks at him and says, "Weren't you just standing at the corner a minute ago?" Well, yeah, he was, cause you know if someone is missing and we go stand on the corner, maybe we'll see them, right? Isn't that the first thing you do when you can't find someone, walk down to the corner? So this woman has no idea why we are being so overly dramatic about someone being a few minutes late and we couldn't really tell her, cause you know, elopement problems aren't really a high point to put on a resume. Our supervisor called shortly thereafter and said she was on her way. And maybe you had to be there, but is was really comical at the end of the meeting when the Joblink lady assured us that if for some reason she was going to be late to the next meeting, she would be sure to call and let us know well in advance.