Warranted shame for taking a public selfie has gone completely overboard for a Melbourne dad. As an adult, one deserves a touch of humiliation for taking a picture of himself in front of other humans, but we’re thinking something along the lines of Erin Andrews’ eye roll and definitely not death threats.
In an attempt to get some free babysitting, a mother of two left her kids to watch Frozen while she shopped another section on her trip to Target. “Immediately” when she got back to her kids, or you know, whenever she decided to go pick them up from the children’s section, she heard the secondhand story telephoned through them.
In what would have been ok, she stopped and talked to Target security. Unfortunately, she decided to also go for some more verbally, less physically aggressive, Batman style, vigilante justice secretly following him out of the store, snapping his picture and posting it to Facebook with the following caption:
Ok people, take a look at this creep. Today at Knox, he approached my children when they were sitting at the Frozen movie in the children’s clothing section. He said “Hey, kids!” and they looked up and he took a photo, then he said “I’m sending this to a 16-year-old.” I immediately removed the kids from that area and took them to security at the front so I then followed them and took his picture and he took off. Centre management were straight onto and so are the police. Police said if he is a registered sex offender, he will be charged. This happened at Knox. Be safe with your kids.
The post blew up on her Facebook. “Burn the witch!” said no one because they were too busy saying much worse things.
The selfie dad remained unaware of his digital Salem Witch Trial until his partner called him after being informed by a friend of the post. At once, he turned himself into the police and embarrassingly proved his innocence with a selfie. According to the Daily Mail:
“In real terms, it was embarrassing enough to be standing in front of Darth Vader, to be honest.
I’m a father of three kids and a normal human being… I’ve never taken a selfie before.
I was in two minds whether to take the selfie, but I thought it’ll be a good daggy dad joke.”
Hopefully some lessons were learned in the unfolding of these events; TV in public does not make the best babysitter, posting things on the Internet can get you sued, and if you’re upset at someone for possibly taking a picture of your kids and posting it, then maybe don’t do a similar thing to him.
If nothing else, we have gained a great adage for our current times that will hold up to some of the greats: If you cross your eyes, they might stay like that, if you eat too many snacks you will spoil your dinner, and if you take your first selfie you might get death threats.
