Did you ever get lost when you were a kid?

[undeterred]

I got left in a liquor store when I was about 6 and each of my parents thought I was with the other until they saw each other in another store. I remember being afraid I was going to have to stay with the police or liquor store clerk... but eventually the parents came looking.

[Dave Reynolds]

1. No,

much to my parent's eternal chagrin.

[Lavender Brown]

2. Yes, I was separated from my family in a mall when I was 5

I was really scared.

[Stevendsmith]

3. Yes. At Disneyland when I was around five or six. Scared shitless! (n/t

[begin_within]

24. Same here - lost at Disneyland for 10 minutes at age 5 - cried, then found

family - was truly frightening!

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. Oh, god, yeah

We were going up to the SeaTac area when I was 4 and we stopped at a grocery store somewhere in Oregon. I stayed outside to ride the horse (remember those rides in front of stores?), and when I went inside I couldn't find my folks, so I went back to the car — which was sort of a smart move, I guess, except that I was scared and crying and I didn't want anyone to see me crying, so I scrunched down on the floor of the back seat. Seemed like forever before my mom came out and looked in the car.

She told me years later that for a long time after that, whenever we went inside a store I'd squeeze the hell out of her hand.

:scared:

[bigwillq]

5. Yes. In a mall.

It was a harrowing experience to say the least. I was like 5 or 6.
I was always wandering off, still do and I got separated from my mother.
It was crazy!

[LostinVA]

6. When I was about 4-5, in the grocery store

Scared me to DEATH.

[redqueen]

7. Yup, at the State Fair.

I don't recall being scared or nervous at all.

[johnnie]

8. When I was 10

My parents left me in Toronto and realized it before the crossed the border.
Long story, but being lost in another country for a few hours sucks a little bit..lol.

[gollygee]

9. I had to walk myself to kindergarten

the school was very close but I remember getting lost anyway and somehow ending up at a fire station. The firemen helped me find home? school? I don't remember where they took me. It did freak me out. I was afraid to walk myself in the first place, and after I got lost I was unwilling to walk alone. My folks found someone to walk with me after that.

[RetroLounge]

10. Yes, and I'mm 44 and still lost...

but I am a man so I never ask for directions...

RL

[undeterred]

11. ...

:) After a certain age its hard to find a good map.

[RetroLounge]

21. I need an emotional cartographer

:rofl:

RL

[0007]

15. Maybe you're just confused?

[RetroLounge]

22. That's a given...

:D

RL

[0007]

23. I know the feeling.

[center}:hi:

[undeterred]

12. 5-6 must be a dangerous age

Parents don't feel like they have to watch every second, but its still too young to be alone.

[SOteric]

13. No. But my brothers were always telling me I should.

:hi:

[undeterred]

37. ...

:hi:

[skygazer]

14. Well, sort of

My parents thought I was lost - I thought I was going out to the treehouse. One of my favorite stories.

I was about 3 or 4. We lived on a farm and out in the woods beyond the back field, my dad had built a treehouse for the older kids. One day all the other kids went out there and I decided I wanted to go, too. So when my poor harassed mother had her back turned, I set off with our collie dog and marched across the field and up the trail into the woods.

Unbeknownst to me, however, the trail forked and I took the wrong fork, heading out into the boondocks. My mom eventually realized it was awfully quiet, looked around all the usual spots for me then got nervous. She and my dad hunted around and finally decided to check the treehouse.

They walked out there and I wasn't there - the other kids hadn't seen me. So my parents set off up the other trail and finally, way off in the distance, they spotted me. My mom later told me that I must have been gone a good hour or more at that point but I wasn't afraid and I wasn't crying. I was marching straight uphill, determined to get to where I thought I was going. The dog, who had more sense than I did, kept pushing in front of me and sitting down in the trail but I'd shove her aside and keep going. When my parents caught up to me and dragged me home, I was totally pissed!

I've been taking off on my own ever since. Must have been born with a wandering gene.

[trof]

16. Miz t. was left behind as a kid.

She was a middle of six.
The family was on a vacation trip and she went to wee at a pit stop.
When she came out, they were gone.
A few miles down the road they discovered she was missing and went back.
I don't think she's ever gotten over it.

[skygazer]

19. That happened to my sister

Also middle of six (I'm the "baby" - and always referred to that way, though I'm almost 45). She was the 'quiet one'. :shrug:

[Xipe Totec]

17. No, but my parents thought I was.

When I was six I missed the school bus going home, so I just walked. Naturally, I only knew the route the bus took, so I followed it; winding through town this way and that. It took me nearly five hours to walk the entire route. I arrived home to police cars, an entire neighborhood in an uproar, and the principal (the parish priest; since it was a Catholic school) apologizing to my parents. Didn't even have a clue at the time, what the big commotion was about. :evilgrin:

[Mutley]

18. I got lost in the mall.

I tried to follow my sister into an arcade and managed to lose track of both her and my mother. If Zombywoof sees this... it was the Pembroke Mall. :rofl:

[mokawanis]

20. I got lost when I was an adult

in Utah, in a wilderness area. Left the car to look for a campsite and went too far. When we turned around to return to the car we immediately began arguing about the right way. Very hot day too. Wandered for 3 hours, with no sunscreen or water, and argued about which way to go the whole time.

[yvr girl]

25. Lots of times

I had a penchant for wondering off.

I was left at a dog show one time. My mom thought I was with my dad, and my dad thought I was with my mom. A family friend ended up bringing me home.

My parents left me at a gas station when we were on a road trip. I usually slept in the car, so it took them awhile to miss me. I was playing on a patch of grass when they came back to get me.

The most famous incident occurred when I was 7 years old. Our neighbours were building a new house. My parents had pointed it out to me when we drove past it, but I had never been there. My friend and her mom were going to be walking there to do some stuff, and asked if I wanted to join them. I said yes, but that I needed to check with my mom.

My mom was on the phone, and would not be interrupted. By the time I went to the end of the street to meet my friend - they had gone - they assumed that I wasn't allowed to go. I figured out I would just make my own way there.

I went in the right general direction, but I was off by a couple of streets. I ran into a different friend who was playing in a park beside his house, so I just decided to play with him. Once the other kids had been called inside, he asked me if I wanted to come to his house. I went. His mom asked if my parents knew where I was, and I said yes.

I ended up staying at my friend's house until midnight. People who had been visiting my friend's parents gave me a ride home. The house was deserted except for a surprise puppy who had arrived while I was out. I played with the dog.

After awhile, my (older) brother got home and asked, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be dead." Eventually, the rest of my family came home.

Apparently, people far and wide were out looking for me. In high school, I still had teachers tell me that they looked for me when I was lost.

[Flying Dream Blues]

26. When I was 8 we moved to a new city and I took off on my

bike and forgot the way home. I wandered around for an hour or so and then started to cry. A postman asked me what was wrong, and then showed me the way home. :)

[fishwax]

27. I got lost in my closet once as a kid

First night sleeping in a brand new house my dad had built, and my room had a walk-in closet that was big and empty. I must have sleep walked, because I woke up sitting against a wall in the pitch black, having no idea where the hell I was and unable to see anything at all. Not the same as being lost in the outside world, of course, but that was a kinda scary night. :)

[hickman1937]

28. Not lost just left.

When I was 8 I wanted to be a Girl Scout. I asked my mom if I could join but she'd have to pick me up after school about 4pm. She said "we'll see" which always meant "drop it". I made the mistake of asking my Dad at dinner if I could. He didn't see any problem so I went to the meeting the next day, and sat on the church steps till 7:30 that evening. My Dad got home at 7:15, took a head count and said "where's Janet?" He came and got me and explained all the way home that Mom was so busy that she forgot. All my life it was my Dad that "came and got me".

edit for crappy spelling

[LaraMN]

29. Constantly. Short attention span when confronted with shopping.

Eventually my Mom just quit looking for me when I disappeared and knew I'd show up crying, sooner or later.

[eyesroll]

30. Twice -- at 4, I got separated from my party in the grocery store

I went up to the clerk, said I was lost. "Where are your parent?" she asked. "They're in Jamaica!" I cried. After they found out I was not abandoned, and was staying with the grandparents while my parents were on a trip, it was a quick reunion.

And, at 6, my friend and I got left behind at a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. We tag-team manipulated the staff perfectly. We were precocious little kids. We knew we were in a safe place. We knew either the birthday parents or our own parents would be there eventually. And we knew that turning on the waterworks would net us a boatload of free tokens. :D

[we can do it]

31. No I Was Always Afraid That Would Happen, So I Kept My Parents In Site

[pitohui]

32. christ i still get lost

i got lost in kyoto the other week and i'm surprised i'm not still there, it isn't like i could just read the freakin street signs or something

seriously, some of us get lost just going to the grocery store, we are geographically dyslexic, you just learn to leave more time to get places and not stress it

[Kali]

42. shopping malls

:scared:

[Zookeeper]

33. I did get "lost" as a child in an unfamiliar wooded area...

but I stayed calm and found my way out. I'm a wanderer at heart, so I never really feel lost, even if I don't know where I am.

On the other hand, as a parent, I had my youngest child wander off in a Target store when he was three or four years old and I freaked! I had security alerted, doors guarded, etc., then I found him hiding in the middle of a clothes rack, giggling. Little devil!

[XemaSab]

34. When I was about 5

my grandparents lived in the wood near yosemite and I wandered off and was gone for HOURS.... I was with their dog, and I figured the dog would go home eventually, so I followed the dog through creeks, fences, brush...

It was starting to get dark, and I found a road and me and the dog were wandering along the road when a man pulled up, and he said he was out looking for me, along with the rest of the fire department and half the town.

I was a total mess when I got back to my grandparents' house.

First of many times lost in the woods... :D

[Burma Jones]

35. All The Time

I grew up on College Campuses - Indiana University and University of North Carolina, so I wandered around a lot, so I don't know if you would call it "lost" as much as incommunicado.....

My folks tell me a story that at age three I wandered into a dorm, went to the laundry room, removed all my clothes and washed them with some change I had taken. I was returned by some very thoughtful undergrads. I also used to go to Carmichael and watch the then second or third year coach Dean Smith run the UNC Basketball team practices. I could go to any number of swimming pools on campus - I learned to swim at age 4 - hang out in libraries and dining halls and was generally a mascot of a fraternity house....

By the time I was 10, I was allowed to take the bus from Metarie down to the French Quarter (15 cents back then, or the deposit from five pop bottles). I would go to Cafe Du Monde and drink cafe au lait, eat Begnets and smoke cigarettes....

I always made it back.........

[barb162]

36. Once I had a close call and it was very scary

Luckily my brother figured it out, which way to get home.

[El Fuego]

38. Yes in Ocala National Forest

I think I was 7 or 8. We were at a recreational area, and I left my parents to go to the bathrooms... and I took the wrong fork in the road, and I kept walking and walking,deeper into the woods.

Eventually I turned back, but not before my mother had the whole place in a uproar and called the cops because I was missing. She was hysterical. It didn't help that a couple of teenagers had been murdered there around that time.

[UncleSepp]

39. Got lost in a flash flood once

I was about five or six, and I was playing with a friend in the creek in the woods behind our house. We were walking along the creek, figuring we could always follow the creek back out of the woods. The creek rose in a flash flood and came out of its bed, leaving us with nothing to follow. We couldn't see my house any more, I think because of the rain. So we kept walking. I think we were trying to head in a direction opposite to where the water seemed to be flowing to, to get higher up. I don't remember exactly, but I know we were floating leaves on the water to see which way it was going. Somewhere along the line we were going through armpit deep water - which isn't all that deep when you're six - and a water moccasin swam by.

We eventually came out on the other side of the woods from my house, several miles away. There was a search helicopter out by the time we came out. Nobody was hurt - I lost a boot in the mud, but that was all. Needless to say, that friend never came over to play again.

[ChoralScholar]

40. I got lost at that grand canyon place when I was 10

Turns out my parents had left me there.

But I turned out okay:

[Jamastiene]

41. I get lost now, and I am the one driving...

or walking. I have been known to run into poles and ladders and such in grocery stores...When walking, that is. I haven't run into anything with the car yet. I just tend to sit idly when the light turns green. I get tired of waiting and next thing you know I am staring off into space. Luck for me, there is always some kind considerate driver behind me who will gladly blow the horn to alert me of my forgetfulness and my chance to go when the light is green.

[long_green]

43. I got lost in the Superdome just weeks after it opened

I was horsing around with a cousin who locked me out of the lounge we were in. I took a couple of steps and then realized how everything in the Dome looked like everything else. I was seven and I freaked. A nice security guard took me to the security HQ where I was picked up ten years later (or so it seemed).