23 June 2010 Paranoia strikes deep

23 June 2010 Paranoia strikes deep


Yesterday evening we foiled what was probably an attempted robbery.

At 1830 a young black woman knocked on the door. She had an unlabeled container in her hand that looked like a dish-washing detergent container. She wanted to see the “woman of the house.”

She was accompanied by at least one other person who was driving the large silver SUV that sat idling the driveway, blocking in both our vehicles. When I refused to call Gloria she asked about another time, then left when I told her that there would not be a good time to return.

They backed out of the driveway, concealing their license plate. They then went up valley toward the family compound. I didn’t see any more of them.

The more we thought about it, the less we liked the event. In our opinion it was either a scouting attempt for a robbery or some sort of scam. The woman had no paperwork, sales was not foremost in her mind. The SUV had no commercial markings. And the nature of the entire encounter was uncomfortable.

No one in that SUV belonged here. It wasn’t the color of anyone’s skin, the woman spoke standard English, her clothing was not unusual, her hair was well-dressed and not extreme. But something about the encounter had alarm bells ringing. Gloria was in another room, listening, ready to call the law. I didn’t ask her to do that, she picked up the alarm on her own.

There have been some home invasions in the region lately that have resulted in injuries and fatalities. None of them have been in this neighborhood but there are some likely targets on the middle and lower part of the road. Our house sits well back off the road and is well-screened. Our presence yesterday may well have prevented a burglary.

We alerted several friends last night. We called the sheriff’s office this morning. We should have called them immediately last night. We hate to seem paranoid but the Sheriff’s office did not seem to think we were wrong in our suspicion.

We had BLT’s for dinner tonight. Very enjoyable!