I Left My Herd in San Francisco

As much as I like to ridicule those who live their lives on the Left Coast, boasting that nothing people do out there could ever again surprise me ... this story from just outside of San Francisco shocks even me:

A married couple who got a dog sitter for their puppies but left the man's young children home alone while they vacationed in Las Vegas were arrested Wednesday, police said.
...
The couple apparently told 9-year-old Joshua to look after his 5-year-brother, Jason, who is autistic. The children spent one night alone before police found them.

With two of our own kids in fairly close proximity to those ages, I know that we would never even consider leaving them alone to care for themselves, not even for a night -- much less for five days and nights. And that is without the severe handicaps of autism thrown into the mix. (Although, for the record, I consider ages 5 thru 10 a form of mental retardation in and of itself...)

And in case the circumstances of this story are not enough to break your heart, this is the comment from the nine-year-old man of the house:

Joshua said his father and stepmother got each other puppies for Christmas, which they brought to De La Vega's mother to care for before leaving town.

"I thought they loved them more than us," Joshua told The Associated Press during an interview at his maternal grandmother's apartment.

To his credit, young Joshua apparently handled the situation very well. But this couple had better be thankful they live in a state of judicial leniency (bear in mind the cases of OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson). In the Lone Star State, they would be hard pressed to find a jury that would not ship them off to Huntsville and then throw away the key.