When I was 10 years old, I heard a man die and did nothing to help.

It's not something I'm proud of, but I was just a scared kid at the time.

My parents often left me alone at home when I was a child.

I won't say they didn't love me or anything so dramatic, but they had priorities.

Often times, I was not especially high on that list.

Still, I enjoyed the solitude.

I had run of the house and could pretty much get away with whatever I wanted while they were gone.

Well, as long as I made sure to clean up after myself, what they didn't know couldn't hurt me after all.

It was early February when it happened, while my folks were out on a part Valentine's part anniversary date.

They had married around that time of year about a decade and a half prior to that date,

so they would make a big deal about it annually.

It was snowy outside, and I wanted to go play in it while they were gone,

but I had the biggest fear about inadvertently getting myself locked out of the house and freezing to death

before anyone could arrive in time to save me.

It was nearly 10 o'clock when my mom called and told me they wouldn't be home until morning.

This would be neither my first nor last time alone in the house,

so I assured her that I would keep the doors locked and get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Of course, what I considered reasonable and what she did were quite different.

Were I being responsible, I would have likely already have been in my bedroom,

but I was happily in the middle of binging horror movies downstairs when she called.

I won't say they never gave me nightmares as my mother warned, but I still loved them.

We had a great assortment of channels on our unlocked cable box,

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