Karen Chronicles: The Lost Girls

The crunchy organic food joint was open and airy. Dappled sun streaked onto the walls through the retractable doors. The temperature outside was rising quickly, presaging Chicago’s first truly gorgeous day of the year. Staff wore masks around their chins. Customers didn’t bother.

I glanced at the menu but didn’t see cappuccinos on offer. I asked anyway. Sure, they could make me a cappuccino. $5.55. Christ, this inflation thing might have some legs. The usual suspects shuffled in and out while I waited. Two trophy wives in Lululemon. Uber Eats. Door Dash. A real estate agent.

On the periphery I saw a man walking his dog. A middle-aged cyclist. Three young girls walking along the sidewalk.

“What took you so long?” my wife asked after I handed her the overpriced stimulant.

“Was I gone that long?” Was I gone that long?

“No. But I thought you might’ve walked to the nicer coffee shop.”

I considered it, but the hippies were good enough. We stood in silence while my almost-three-year-old son climbed atop the elevated garden beds, digging with his hands in the thawed muck. Both our kids did everything at the playground except play on the playground.

“Excuse me,” a voice called from behind. It was bracing and shrewish, awash with disdain. “I have a question.”

I turned one-eighty. A woman —husky, Caucasoid, early fifties, dirty blond hair—wearing mom jeans and a navy-blue sweatshirt was leaning against the black iron fence. A leash dangled from her right hand. A golden retriever held hostage at the other end.

“Okay,” I said.

“I saw three girls walking down Lincoln to the park. They were by themselves. That is not okay!” That’s a declaration of contempt, not a question, I thought.

“I saw them too. They’re here,” my wife said.

“They were all alone. That’s just… I don’t know. That’s not right! That’s weird. It’s not okay!” the woman said, visibly agitated.

My wife and I glanced at each other. “It’s possible they live in one of those houses right there,” I said, pointing to the row of apartments and condos adjacent to the playground. “Some parents let their kids play here by themselves because they can see them from their window.”

“But I saw them walking down Lincoln. That’s not okay. Not okay at all.”

“Okay…thanks,” I said. The woman huffed, then wobbled away. I grabbed the cappuccino from my wife’s hand and took a sip.

“Do you think we should ask those girls if they’re here by themselves?” my wife asked.

“No,” I said reflexively. “They’re fine. They probably live in one of those houses.”

“They could be lost.”

“C’mon,” I scoffed. “The oldest girl looks about ten. This is why everyone’s such a pussy nowadays.” She laughed. Underneath our nonthreatening model minority veneers, we were both toxic proto-millennials aging into cultural obscurity.

A few moments passed.

“Was that about those three girls?” another voice, this one with an Australian accent, inquired. I did another one-eighty. Another white woman. Baggy t-shirt and cardigan. Yoga pants. Oversized sunglasses.

“Yeah, she was wondering if they were here by themselves. They are,” my wife confirmed.

“Should we call someone?” the woman wondered.

We both shrugged. “The social fabric of our society is completely torn,” I said, immediately recognizing that sentence’s clanky redundancy. “It’s what it is. They’ll be fine.”

“I don’t even let my twelve-year-old come to the park by himself,” the Wallaby asserted. “Also, shouldn’t they be in school?”

“They probably have Covid. And they’re isolating at home,” I said. The Aussie laughed, muttered something indecipherable about “Darwinism,” then went back to the business of ignoring her own two children.

“Why aren’t they in school?” my wife asked.

“Great question,” I said.

Seconds later a man opened the park gate. He looked like an off-brand version of a Saudi oligarch vacationing in the Seychelles. Tan skin, slightly darker than me. Five-foot-six, about one-forty. He wore a thick but kempt salt-and-pepper beard, a beige newsboy cap, and silver reflective Ray Ban’s atop a leopard-printed jacket and velour pants. He moseyed by us without saying hello and joined the three girls.

“There we are,” the Australian yelled from afar. My wife smiled and waved in acknowledgement.

Five minutes later my wife, son and I wandered back to our bikes at the far side of the playground, near the toddler play structure. The badly dressed man pushed his (presumed) daughters on the swings in the far-left corner of the park. Then balanced with them on the seesaw. Then helped them navigate the larger play structure near the basketball court.

My son collected broken concrete and loose gravel. The Aussie departed with her boys. Our cappuccino was almost finished.

“Do you think that’s their dad?” my wife asked.

“Probably kidnapped them.”

“Jesus. What if he did?”

“If that dude kidnapped those three girls, the last place he’d bring them is the playground,” I said.

“You never know.”

“You sound like those crazy old white women.”

“Oh God she called the cops.”

What?! I did a third one-eighty. A CPD-issued Ford Explorer sat double-parked in the adjoining cul-de-sac, hazard lights flashing. A police officer stood towering above the truck, a confused look affixed to his hairless face and head.

“Jesus tits,” I said.

“What should we do?” my wife asked.

“I don’t know.” The officer studied the playground from the sidewalk, searching for three unchaperoned girls that weren’t there. “The monkey in me wants to see how this plays out,” I whispered, after a pause, “but we should probably tell him. Do you want to talk to him?”

A polite decline. I turned and stepped toward the officer, raising my right hand in surrender. “Excuse me, Sir.”

“Hi, yes,” he said, jovially.

“I’m speculating here, but are you looking for the three lost girls?”

“I am,” the policeman said, smirking.

“Yeah, that’s them over there with their dad. Or caregiver, I guess. My wife saw them come into the park alone, and then this woman was walking her dog and asked us about it, and we said we didn’t know where their parents were, but they probably live in one of those houses”—pointing—“and then she left, and then like two minutes later the guy showed up,” I explained.

“Ah,” the officer said, smiling. He was very friendly for CPD. #Northside.

“Push me higher, Daddy!” the middle child shouted to the Eurotrash-clad dad.

“That clears that up,” the officer said.

“He’s been here for a while. We just wanted to let you know. We don’t want to make a scene or anything,” I said.

“I appreciate that. Every parent has a different approach. Some are better than others.”

The officer told us he wanted to pull the absentee father aside without causing alarm. He strolled onto the rubber, Smurf-turf coating. Everyone on the playground—especially the Black and Hispanic nannies harboring Aryan children—responded immediately to his presence. Curious murmurs and unease flooded the crisp morning air.

The officer corralled the deadbeat dad. They exchanged brief words out of earshot. Laughs and smiles. Went their separate ways.

The girls exited the playground. “What did the policeman want, Daddy?” one of them asked.

“He said you’re not allowed to play here anymore,” the father teased. The girls huddled outside the fence while their father strolled to their car alone, at least a hundred meters away.

“The cop is still standing right there! What is he doing?!” my wife asked me.

“I guess he’s trying to prove a point. Or something.”

The Crown Prince soon rejoined his progeny—he’d shed his cat fur for a silk shirt unbuttoned to the solar plexus—and they departed. The officer lingered for another moment, then thanked us and wished us a good rest of the day. We loaded up our bikes, preparing to depart.

“Do you think that guy thinks we called the cops on him?” my wife asked, astutely.

“Probably. Betrayed by one of his own,” I lamented. “I was going to stop him earlier when he first walked in to tell him Karen was having a conniption. I had no idea she’d actually call the cops.”

“I did. Dog Mom was clearly frantic.” Dog Mom! Vicious.

We walked our bikes to the exit. The perplexing episode concluded, but a creeping sense of uneasiness remained.

Hours later, having had time to process the oddly surreal and totally unnecessary events of the morning—and debate which of us is responsible for constantly attracting insane people (it’s me)—the real issue started to crystallize.

By today’s standard, three girls playing at the park alone is unusual. My wife and I didn’t jump to conclusions, however, and the situation resolved itself within ten minutes. Whether we agreed with the dad’s approach or not, it was clear the girls weren’t in distress, and they trusted their father when he arrived.

We also agreed Dog Mom wasn’t the most insidious variant of Karen observed in the wild. She didn’t threaten to call the cops on a minority just for existing. She wasn’t overtly racist. And she might’ve actually been concerned for the three girls.

Nonetheless, she made zero effort to approach them and ask if they were okay. And it was obviously too inconvenient for her to hang around for a few minutes to see if a caregiver would show up. If she really thought the parent/nanny/whoever was in the wrong, wouldn’t it have been better to make her concerns known by confronting them directly? In authentic Karen fashion?

Nah. This woman’s solution was to badger two strangers. And when our assessment of the situation wasn’t to her liking, she went straight to the cops. Without thought of what that might entail. Or what the downstream consequences could have been.

What if the cop showed up before the dad had arrived? Had he really done anything wrong? Or anything wrong enough to merit police intervention? Worse still, what if—in any case—the absentee dad had been less cartoon character and more DeMar DeRozan? Would the officer have reacted as calmly?

In documenting this farcical charade, my initial thought was to capture its inherent absurdity. Play it for laughs. But that didn’t jibe. The more my wife and I talked it through, the more chilling we realized the possible outcomes could’ve been.

Dog Mom opted for immediate escalation. And in her mind, I’m sure she believes she did the absolute right thing. That’s the troubling and defining throughline for the entire Karen brand.

The setup may be funny. The punchline isn’t.