i work at a huge out of town m&s with an enormous car park. this woman left her small baby and her 3 year old daughter asleep in the car. she locked the doors and left the windows slightly open (it was very very hot) and went into the store to do some food shopping.
while she was shopping, the 3 year old woke up, unlocked the car door, got out and started wandering around the car park. so there she is, bare feet, half asleep, dummy in her mouth, looking for her mummy... when another customer saw her and brought her into the store for us to look after and find her mum.
the 3 year old tells me her baby sister is still asleep in the car. so we did a tannoy for her mum (at that point not sure if she actually was in our store or the asda next door, or the boots...or that the girl had given us the correct name) and the security guard went into the car park to look for this car with the door possibly wide open and a baby asleep in it( or maybe awake by then).
so i'm standing there with this 3 year old feeling slightly shaky at how awful the whole thing is, when the mother turns up with the security guard. she's gone to her car with the shopping to find her 3 year old missing. the security guard found her shouting for her daughter. she's apparently mildly concerned, but not terribly. she sees the look on my face and says... 'i know what you're thinking and it's not like that actually, i only left them for 5 minutes to get a few bits so don't look at me like that, how was i to know she could unlock the car?!' and off they went
i'm not quite sure how i was looking at her, my head was just racing with...what if someone had run this tiny child over, or what if she'd wandered off and no one stopped her...or what if someone reached in and opened the car door and took her... silly, silly woman. doubt she'll do it again.