How Did the Foster Parents NOT...

DEADBOLT the door sooner?! Lucy was walking repeatedly through part of a neighborhood that included a 7 Eleven in the dead of night to see her father, and she did it multiple times before her foster mom put the locked a high-reaching deadbolt!

Rita should have used that in court to demonstrate Sam kept doing the right thing by returning her while these parents kept allowing for this seven year old to sneak out!

What a stupid plot device to show how much Lucy loves Sam... either that or her foster mother was too busy at night fixing her hair. Seriously, Laura Dern's hair looked consistently better at night than during day scenes, LOL. It looked fixed up every night, while it was a crimped-out mess during the day, and no, that was not a style in 2000-2001!

So did I solve why the door was being neglected to be locked? Was something weird going on where the foster mom was more put together at night, hmm? (It's either that or *beep* plot device with the lock; take your pick. :p )