I was in the Nobleton Shopping Plaza around 9:00 this morning. I returned to my car, had just put my seat belt on and there was a man standing at my window. I rolled it down a few inches and he said something like, “My car’s out of gas. Do you have a gas can in your vehicle that I could borrow. No one in the parking lot has one.”
He went on to say something about someone coming with gas (or maybe not), something about driving to get gas, something about…
He took out his wallet to show me his driver’s license saying, “Here’s my driver’s license so that you know I’m legit.”
Somehow in this “discussion” I found out that if I had some money I could lend him, he would pay it back. He asked where I live so he could pay me back. He asked this at least four times! (Right about now you’ve figured out that I’m not all that “street savvy”.) I gave him ten dollars, shut the window and drove home.
I had a few pressing horse things to do. About forty-five minutes later Brenda was in the barn (Brenda the human, not Brenda the cat…that’s an interesting story in itself). I told her about the incident. She advised me to call the police and then said, “Repeat after me. Winnie, I mean it. Repeat after me. If this happens again you do not open your window and you say, ‘Leave now. I’m calling the police.’”
She elaborated, “If you or I ran out of gas we would go to a store and ask to make a phone call. We wouldn’t go up to people in cars and ask for help.”
I called the police. The good news is: I have the York Regional Police number by the barn’s phone. The operator asked for a description of the individual. (It’s amazing how little I noticed about this person.) The operator also said, “Please, if this happens again, call us as soon as possible. Right now I’ll alert our cruisers in the area.”
Creepy, scary and so very close to home!
