I learned an embarrassing truth about myself last week. Despite all of my cautious behavior, suspicious tendencies, and general mistrust in mankind, it turns out I do NOT react appropriately in a potentially threatening situation.
Allow me to explain:
As my friend Amy and I were leaving after a closing shift at the restaurant last week, we noticed a beat up car parked between her vehicle and mine. This was unusual because it was almost 11 p.m. and we were the only closers, so our side of the parking lot should have been completely empty save for our two cars.
As we approached, the male driver of the suspicious vehicle quickly pulled out of the space and appeared to be leaving. Amy and I hurried to our respective cars, but just as I was climbing into the driver’s seat, the car peeled around and returned to the space it had previously occupied. At this point I became very nervous because: 1) It pulled in so quickly that it almost hit my open driver’s side door 2) It approached at such an angle that I was now incapable of pulling out without conducting some serious Austin Powers style maneuvering, and 3) I was now cut off from Amy.
As I scrambled to get into my car, the passenger side window of the other car rolled down and a large woman who appeared to be around my age asked me if I could ‘help them out.’ As she spoke she glanced toward the backseat of their vehicle where a car seat was visible. I couldn’t tell if there was a child in the seat or not, but due to the suspect nature of their approach my fight or flight instinct had kicked in. I muttered a quick, “Sorry,” closed and locked my door, and started my engine. At this point Amy, who was unaware that the people in the car were speaking to me, began pulling out. But before she could, the other car peeled out once again and drove off in a hurry. At the stoplight at the end of the road, I pulled alongside Amy and told her what had happened. I then drove home quickly, constantly checking my rear view mirrors to make sure I wasn’t being followed. I felt a horrible mix of guilt and fear. I wondered if I had just passed up am opportunity to help out a family in need, or if I had just narrowly escaped becoming the victim of a crime of some sort.
I lay awake for a long time that night thinking about the right and the wrong way to ask a woman for help, and whether or not it is fair to assume people who have been raised in an atmosphere of poverty should be expected to know better. It also occurred to me that some kind of scam must have been at play, because if help was truly needed, surely they would have gone to a more densely populated area, and not the almost empty parking lot of a closed restaurant. What I concluded was that they knew servers left work with cash at the end of the night, and had been waiting for us to come out.
Now here is the part where my reaction was inappropriate. While my self preservation instincts did indeed kick in, my ‘others’ preservation instincts did NOT! Thankfully Amy (who in so many ways is like an older and wiser sister to me) has some of the best instincts I have ever seen.
Here is what she did:
First, she did not budge until she knew that I was safe and on my way. Then she noted where the car had gone and made some very careful observations. The couple had pulled into a gas station that was closed and they were now conversing with the passengers of a dark SUV. Surmising that the occupants of the two cars must somehow be connected (because why else would the SUV just have been sitting in the parking lot of a closed gas station?), she elected to call and notify our manager, Lana, who was still inside the restaurant shutting things down. Over the next hour or so Lana received several hang up calls, which is not a very common occurrence at our store in the middle of the night. So she called the police who came and checked out the situation and escorted Lana to her car.
Now I cannot say with any certainty what was or was not going on that night. But what I can say for certain is that Amy and Lana took proactive steps to protect themselves AND others, while I just went on my troubled way, not even giving a thought to the woman still inside, who would be leaving by herself. It never occurred to me to call Lana, it never occurred to me to call the police, because I was too busy thinking about the deeper philosophical issues of poverty and crimes of desperation to make any actual attempt to prevent one from happening!!
All I have to say is, thank God for women with street smarts who know how to react in a crisis, and may I absorb just a tiny bit of their common sense in the days to come!
