There are some kinds of crime stories that stick with you. Long after the headlines fade and the outrage passes for most, there are just some aches you just don’t forget.
For me, the Susan Smith story of 1994 is one of those. If you’ve forgotten who Susan Smith is, she’s the South Carolina woman who drove herself and her two small children (ages 3 and 14 months) to a nearby lake, then got out as the car rolled into the water, killing both of little boys.
And oh yeah, she claimed a black man car-jacked her and kidnapped her boys.
I couldn’t get over that story when I first heard about it. What kind of a mother does that? What was going through the minds of Michael and Alex Smith as their Mom’s car rolled into the lake, with them trapped inside? How could anyone possibly do that to children they created?
It was as awful a story as I could imagine. And I hoped to never hear about anything like it again.
Except it happened again. This week. In Newburgh, N.Y., a disgusting excuse for a human being named Lashonda Armstrong drove a car containing herself and her four children off the road and into the Hudson River, with the hopes of killing them all.
She even allegedly told the kids “you’re all going to die.” But 10-year-old Lashaun Armstrong didn’t die. He is a hero and a survivor, and 100 times the human being his mother is. He escaped, somehow, and swam to shore.
There aren’t enough places in my heart to encapsulate the rage I feel toward the woman. If you’ve given up hope on life, fine, so be it. But to try to destroy the lives of innocent children is incomprehensible to me.
I mean that word literally. I cannot comprehend a parent trying to intentionally drown her children. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can explain that.
I’m not sure there’s a Hell. But if there is I sure hope Lashonda Armstrong is roasting in it right now.
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**Maybe it’s because it features a classic song from the 80s, the music of my childhood. Maybe it’s the expression on the second kid’s face, the pure anguish we’ve all felt in the backseat of the car, trapped in the company of our parents and their music.
Either way, the short spot above is totally my new favorite commercial. I love, love, love it:
**I love it when common sense wins. A school district in Easton, PA threatened to suspend two 13-year-old girls last autumn because they were wearing “I ♥ Boobies” bracelets in school, showing support for breast cancer awareness. Apparently the school district thought the bracelets were vulgar and inappropriate and might inspire trouble.
As my smart and funny friend April Hall said, “like it takes bracelets to get teenaged boys to think about boobs!” (Personally, my favorite breast cancer awareness slogans are “Save the Ta-Tas” and “Save Second Base.”)
Anyway, the two kids and the ACLU sued, and a federal judge this week ruled that the girls absolutely had the right to wear the bracelets, and that they should not have been punished.
I mean come on, Easton school district, they’re trying to help support a cause here.
And really, who doesn’t heart boobies?
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