A truly humiliating situation is currently unfolding at a dinner party in Brooklyn, and it’s so mortifying that it’s hard to look away: This guy just found out that he’s the only one in his friend group who doesn’t spring into action when they get an Amber alert.
Yikes! It would suck to be this guy right now. He’s got to be feeling like the biggest idiot in the entire world.
Thirty-six-year-old Mark Watt was enjoying a social event at his friend’s apartment in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood when everyone’s phones suddenly began sounding an alarm and displaying an Amber alert indicating that a 6-year-old boy had been abducted. While Mark simply silenced his phone, he was shocked to see that everyone else at the party immediately leapt from their chairs and started making rapid preparations to track down the child’s kidnapper and bring him to justice. Many of the other guests turned to look at Mark with surprise and disgust when they realized he was choosing to ignore the alert.
“This was such a devastating way to find out that I’m the only person I know who doesn’t treat Amber alerts as an immediate call to hit the streets in a vigilante mob determined to rescue the missing child,” said Mark, who says that everyone he knows has stopped speaking to him after learning that he doesn’t have a go-bag with guns, tactical gear, and walkie talkies packed at all times in case of an Amber alert. “I thought that I was just supposed to keep an eye out for the kidnapper’s car or something, but apparently I’m supposed to immediately shout, ‘Let’s roll,’ stop whatever I’m doing, and begin searching the entire Tristate area until I’ve rescued the kid. I feel like such a fucking asshole.”
Mark says that once he realized that ignoring the Amber alert was a massive faux pas, he offered to join his friends in their search for the missing child, but they told him to stay in the apartment and called him “a fan of kidnapping who loves when kids get snatched”. His spent the next few hours sitting alone, replaying his humiliating behavior in his head until his friends returned with the rescued child.
“They introduced me to the kid as, ‘The man who hoped you stayed missing’,” Mark says. “They were really vicious. I guess I deserve it for being the only person who treated Amber alerts as someone else’s problem instead of a call to start tearing the world apart to capture the kidnapper dead or alive. My friends think I’m a selfish prick, and they’re right.”
Oof. This is truly hard to watch. It’s the kind of situation where all you can do is shake your head and thank the Lord that it didn’t happen to you. It sounds like Mark’s reputation has taken a serious hit on this one, and deservedly so. Hopefully he’s learned his lesson and will start doing his part when the next Amber alert rolls around!
