CHARLESTON DAD LEFT HIS SLEEPING 6-YEAR-OLD IN THE POKEMON LINE AND WENT HOME

Charleston police say John-Michael Dooley, 35, of Johns Island decided a 6-year-old counts as a placeholder. Sometime after 1 a.m. on Nov. 6, witnesses say he gave his daughter a pillow and a blanket, left her asleep on the sidewalk outside a closed Target in West Ashley, and went home. Her job was to hold his spot in the overnight line for the new Pokemon trading card release. The rest of that line was grown adults sitting in a parking lot in the dark waiting on cardboard, and every one of them had a better read on the situation than her dad did. After about an hour with no sign of him, they called police. Officers got there around 2:30 a.m. Dooley eventually came strolling back, the other campers pointed him out, and he got cuffed in front of the exact queue he was trying so hard to stay in. Then he explained himself to detectives, which did not help. Police say he admitted he went home and left her there so he would not miss his shot at the cards. He is charged with unlawful conduct toward a child. The girl was unharmed and placed in emergency protective custody with South Carolina DSS. Target noted that the store was closed at the time, the corporate way of saying none of this happened on our watch.

Why you should give a shit: The new set will be sitting on shelves at a discount by spring, but the child neglect charge and the DSS file do not go on clearance, and the only adults who passed the parenting test that night were strangers in a Target parking lot.