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I should've known better- I am almost 36 years old and 1.5 classes from having an Associate's Degree in Criminal Justice.
Coming out of a fabric store this morning, I walked between cars in the parking lot. I heard a quiet voice say "Ma'am", then "Ma'am" again. Looking all around, I realize I am standing next to a dirty van. My Mom and puppy are less than 40 feet away waiting for me. Being pretty sure my mom could see me in her rear view mirror, and thinking that since the voice was so quiet, the person (obviously male) could need help.
So I step back and look in the window of the passenger side of the van (probably the dumbest thing i have EVER done). A man with a plaid flannel shirt, baseball cap, sandy hair, light eyes and crooked teeth said something else very very quietly to me (obviously to get me to move closer to the van). I couldn't make out but a few words- "My wife" "morgue" (?!!!) "transmission" "no money". Silly me, I said "what?" and moved a step closer, but catching myself, no further, toward the van. He said, "I need some money". By this point I had gotten a bit wiser and moved away. I thought for a second before saying "I don't have any money" and taking off.
I really don't have any money. If I had, I might actually have fumbled through my purse and given him a couple of dollars. Which, because anything could've happened while I was digging for the money, would have been VERY BAD.
So I get to the car and say to my Mom, "You saw the guy in the van talking to me, right?" and she said "No, I was playing with the puppy. You talked to a man in a van?!!!"
I hurriedly tell her what just happened and she goes into the same store I had been in (we take turns watching the puppy) and the guy leaves the parking lot while I am trying to get my cell phone ready to take pictures. The tag number is obscured by mud and he leaves.
My mom hadn't shopped after all though. She told the ladies in the store and came back out. We headed toward home but I was really shook up (and feeling like a dumbass) and kept watching for the van. We were half-way across town when I saw it turn a corner ahead of us. It's a part of town called "Normal Town" and he parked in front of where Allen's hambugers (mentioned in the B-52's song "The Deadbeat Club") used to be.
I say "That's him!". By this time, my phone is ready to take a pic and I got it.
But that is all I can really do. He really may just be a scary panhandler in a van. I didn't get his tag. He didn't threaten me verbally in any way, but he sure scared the daylights out of me.
OK people. Don't be stupid like JILL. Don't be a Jill. Never walk up to a man in a van, no matter how quiet and gentle his voice is. Even if your mom is forty feet away.
Especially the van in the picture.
