Many years ago at night a man opened my passenger side car door while I was in a drive thru in San Diego. He started out talking about how he was a Christian and needed a ride somewhere. Then he started talking about how he was just released from prison
When I got up to the drive-thru window I asked the employee to call the police. The man left my car immediately. I always drive with all doors locked these days.
Oh, my word, what a story! You were clever and daring to do what you did, and how fortunate that the store didn’t “identify” with the interloper, and that he didn’t have a gun on you like today’s depraved yutes.
I guess that could have happened to me, except that I was painfully aware that my passenger side door was stuck shut at the time, which would have been my escape route if my mugger had said, “Slide over” and got in the driver’s seat (since there was very little space between my car and the wall behind him). So I was really trapped and sweating it. (I am a woman).
Fortunately, I had read a church pamphlet that morning, because my harebrained next door neighbor was blasting music at 5:00 AM on a work day. I really wanted to have had another hour of sleep, so I was drowsy, and read it over and over: “If a man asks for your coat, give him also your cloak.” So I talked to the mugger respectfully, like he was a client of my business, calmly and without raising his fear or mine. I just gave him what little folding money I had on me, and then offered him my parking meter quarters and the McD’s meal I had just bought, which he did not want. Then I told him the coast was clear behind him, and he could get away now before someone saw him. He said, ”Don’t go to the police,” and off he went. Thank you, Jesus!
Then I went to the police, which was fruitless—they bungled the very precise description I have given them and broadcast it, but refused to correct it; I heard on the radio several more similar thefts over the following week. Although it was summertime, I came down with pneumonia from the shock, and lost 15 lbs—another blessing in disguise! Have driven with the windows up and the AC on every summer since then.