Night Shopping

My mom always warned me against going to the store after dark. It isn't safe to walk around parking lots after the sun goes down. Although I know its true, I don't care. The stores are never as crowded at night, and if I know what I need to get, I prefer to go at night so its quicker. Maybe I'll start to take my mom's advice from now on.

I needed to make a quick trip to Meijer for batteries a few minutes ago. I arrived, and the parking lot looked pretty empty. Good, I won't have to wait in line long and push my way through crowds. As I approached the door, there was a man standing there. He made eye contact with me as I walked up, and I instantly knew I should have just kept my head down and kept walking.

He asked me if I had a cell phone. I thought about lying for a second, but since I was putting it in my pocket when I walked up to him, I couldn't very well do that. Also, I felt bad, I would hope someone would show me some kindness in the same situation. I handed him my phone. I figure, if you're going to be murdered, you may as well be doing someone a favor when it happens.

He reassured me twice that he wasn't going to kill me or rob me. I told him I wasn't too concerned. He began to explain that his brother was supposed to pick him up and wasn't there, but before he could even finish the sentence, he started muttering curses that I don't feel comfortable repeating about his brother under his breath.

He dialed the number, and as the call started to go through, he saw his brother pull into the parking lot. He gave me the phone back and walked away. I told him to have a good night, but he was swearing at the time, so I'm not sure if he heard me or not.

I bought my batteries and was back in the parking lot in just a few minutes time. As I was walking back to my car, I decided to look to see what the number was that he called. I'm not really sure why, I just did.

As soon as I got into my car, my phone started to ring; vibrate actually. I looked to see who was calling. It was the number the potty mouthed man had called. I didn't answer and figured when the person got to voice mail, the caller would realize he didn't know me and that would be the end of it. Plus, I assumed his brother would tell him he was calling the person who had lent him their phone in the parking lot if he was trying to figure out who had called him. They were in the same car as far as I knew.

No voice mail was left for me, which disappointed me a little if I'm being honest. I would have been nice to get a thank you. About five minutes later, my phone rang again. Same number as before. I thought about answering so the people would stop bothering me, but then I thought about horror movies I had seen and didn't want them to get in contact with me and tell me to look in my trunk where I would find the body of my dead turtle or something.

These strange people haven't called me for about an hour now. Next time I'm in this situation, I'm going to lie and say I don't have a phone. I say that now, but I'll lend it out again, I know it.