Kicker: A frazzled father

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

NICK EICHER, HOST: You know you’re deep in the fog of having a newborn when a neighbor notices you and calls 9-1-1 because she thinks you look like a kidnapper.

HAMBORG: Someone called the cops on me, thinking that I was a homeless person with a baby.

Chapman Hamborg is an artist, and a dad with a bigger sleep deficit than a congressional fiscal deficit. Tattered slippers, hair all askew, baby bundled to his chest—and from the pictures, you’ve got to admit it, yeah, he looked a little scraggly.

The responding officer didn’t seem especially alarmed, but you can never be too careful, so he checked it out.

OFFICER: This lady lives, I think, a street over. She saw you, she got worried, so she followed you.

Here’s the amazing part: Chapman wasn’t offended. Actually, he expressed thanks to the neighbor for caring, and then he decided to sell some of his artwork to benefit a homeless charity.

No kidding! So the moral of the story’s maybe don’t judge a guy by his slippers until you’ve walked a mile in ’em?

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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