Mom Uses 8-Year-Old to Stake Parking-Spot Claim

We all know that things can get a little crazy around the holidays, and the madness seems to be starting earlier every year. Witness: the widespread acts of violence at retailers the day after Thanksgiving, as shoppers battled for low prices on goods many of them wound up returning to stores.

The latest example of shopping-induced loss of perspective comes from Marin County, where our sibling site Novato Patch reports on a .

Seems that last Saturday, a woman afoot in a shopping-center lot spotted a parking space she preferred to the one she already had taken. Writes police reporter Tom Walsh,

"The spot must have been closer to the store because she instructed her 8-year-old daughter to stand in it until she returned with her vehicle and pull the car in."

Meanwhile, another motorist arrived and managed to dislodge the child from her post, taking the spot.

This didn't go over well with mom, who "became incensed and called authorities, claiming that the other woman tried to run over her daughter," Walsh reports.

The second motorist defended herself, saying the child had "run out in front of her car while she was trying to park."

According to Walsh, the arriving officer listened to both sides of the tale before admonishing the mother for "putting her daughter in a potentially dangerous situation."

She was told not to do it again, Walsh reports. Nobody was arrested.