When I walked into NikkiZ’s doctor’s office yesterday, the waiting room was FULL. This was only our second visit to the new doctor, but I know it’s a small practice so a full waiting room was very odd. The more I sat there, I realized this was all one family. One woman in her 40s, her sister, her mother, and her three kids. The three kids were all girls and ranged from about 8 to about 16. It didn’t take me long to realize the oldest child was the one there to see the doctor. This was one of the conversations that clued me in:
Mother: Why can’t they give us the prescription here to take to get filled for you?
16-year-old: Because my P.O. has to approve it first.
It took me a few minutes to decide what P.O. meant. I knew I had heard it before but I couldn’t remember where. Then it clicked: The nine million procedural dramas I watch. P.O. means Parole Officer.
Surely that nice looking teenager doesn’t have a Parole Officer I thought to myself. What else could P.O. mean in that situation?
It was then that I noticed, Oh. Handcuffs.
This nice looking teenager had handcuffs and ankle shackles on to go with her VERY baggy khaki pants and orange sweatshirt I hadn’t paid any attention to before. You could tell she was doing her best not to draw attention to her retraints. It was a very surreal moment when I realized there was this young girl handcuffed and shackled waiting to see the same doctor I was waiting to take my daughter to see. Especially when I heard the nurse explain to the doctor later, “Poor thing, she’s incarcerated so you have to examine her with her restraints on.”
(I promise I’m not nosey, the office is TINY.)
I have no idea what the girl did, but my curiosity was killing me. I also have no idea why whatever detention center she obviously came from didn’t send a guard of some sort with the restraints. It seems if she was enough of a flight-risk to be cuffed and shackled, she would need a guardian of some sort too. It was all very odd. Do juvenile detention centers release kids to medical facilities, but only if they’re restrained? But they don’t bother sending any sort of chaperone besides the family? It was all VERY weird.
Either way, the girl seemed very nice and it wasn’t like I was worried for our safety or anything. It was just NOT something I expected. To run into a teenage prisoner of some type in the lobby of my daughter’s pediatrian’s office.
Now, at my P.O.’s office? I see them all the time…
That would be very interesting. I would have had a hard time pretending that I was not eavesdropping.
Well THAT’S certainly something you don’t see everyday. I am taking the boys for their 4-month checkup tomorrow morning. They will have all the bandaids and the crankiness to match too. BTW: That pic of NikkiZ holding her sock is one of the cutest yet, big head and all.
Kuh-RAZEE! I would have had a really hard time not being even more snoopy. Maybe the whole “I’m dropping you kids off at the jail” really ISN’T funny anymore. That sucks.
well, it looks like if you do drop them off at the jail…they just drop them back off at the dr.’s office.
And yea, I’d of had to have said something along the lines of “what’d you get clipped for?” or some other prison lingo that I got from watching too much tv.
Can’t blame you for eavesdropping. I’m a bit curious about the restraints sans chaperone situation too.
strange, indeed!
But I love the picture!
TROGDORRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL. that’s a cool dad right there. lol
TROGDORRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL. that’s a cool dad right there. lol
I love that photo. Captures the moment quite well.
Oh, I would have had my nose all up in that. It could have been that she is on house arrest if she was there with her mom. kids that are sentenced to house arrest would meet with a PO and have to be restrained when leaving the home, depending on the severity.
maybe she was on house arrest and had special permission to go to the doctor. she was probably wearing one of those ankle sensors things that let her p.o. know where she is. this is my guess and i only know about house arrest because i was on it in high school for a little thing called stealing five cars. okay, just kidding, but when visiting a friend of mine in college, we stopped by her friend’s house to say hi. he was on house arrest and had one of those ankle things on, so he couldn’t come all the way out to our car. which i didn’t mind. wow, i had forgotten all about that!
maybe she just comes from a VERY strict family? And PO means Papa Ogre?
Wow…quite a story, but I suppose in today’s world, one is liable to witness anything. How sad though…young enough to still be seeing a Pediatrician and in shackles. Does seem a bit odd there was no chaperone….yet, the whole family was there.
I heart MrZ’s T-shirt. I bought the same on, in black, for my friend Brendon’s birthday last year.
The shipping cost me more than the t-shirt itself lol.