Massey and her friend both said "Go for it" so I turned around and went back. She was in a stretch of the road with no houses on it for at least a half mile either way. I slowed and rolled my window down and asked if she needed a ride? As the impatient red neck behind me screamed around us like I had stopped to check under the hood or rotate my tires...the woman paused half a second and said "Sure, that would be great."
Getting into my Lil' Beemer is like crawling into a clown car at the circus but since Massey and her friend were both in the back seat it was a lot easier for her to crawl in the front with her bags.
Her purse was open on the floorboard between her legs and I didn't see a Glock sticking out of it or the handle of a hunting knife...so off we went! She spoke in a hushed and monotone voice and I will admit it was kind of spooky sounding but since she had obviously been walking for a while carrying two bags and was glistening with perspiration, I knew I could take her if I had to.
By this time the girls were in the back seat silently texting each other on their phones plotting what they would do if she turned out to be a whack job. I asked her where she needed to go (silently hoping she wouldn't say Alabama or California) when she said "Just to Kroger."
I introduced myself , Massey and her friend by name and she said in the same hushed tone as she turned to look at them in the back seat "I'm not a bad person, I'm an engineer."
I tried to lighten the mood and said "That's great! I'm a huge TECH fan, my brother and brother in law both went to Ga. Tech...GO Jackets!"
She said she was out of a job and once again I empathized with her. I told her my husband had been out of work for over a year and told her about a couple of websites he had used to try and find work.
"She said I don't have Internet."
Okay, she doesn't have a job, doesn't have a car and doesn't have Internet. That doesn't make her a bad person or mass murderer. I asked her how long it took her to walk to the store and she replied in the same (almost sexual nature of a 900 number sex operator partner) "About two hours."
By this time we arrived back at the store we had left twenty minutes ago. She climbed out of my little clown car and whispered a hushed "Thank You."
On our way back home (for the second time) I told Massey and her friend a story my parents had told me.
My Diddy's parents grew up in the heights of the Great Depression. My grand father owned a used car lot so I suppose they were better off than most. They picked up a hitch hiker one night on their way home. They asked him where he was going and he really didn't know so they simply took him home with them. We always called my grandparents "Big Daddy and Big Mama." Big Daddy and Big Mama took the hitch hiker home with them. They fed him let him bathe and gave him a bag of clean clothes to take with him when he left in the morning after offering him a place to sleep for the night.
They woke in the morning to find the hitch hiker gone. He left, taking the bag of clothes leaving them a note.
"I intended to rob and kill you both but you were so gracious and generous that I couldn't ."
Sometimes you have to take chances. My grandparents were lucky...they were great people, so great that even a bad person knew they were good.
I didn't get robbed, but I met a quirky person. You have to take chances, you have to trust yourself and you have to have faith in your fellow man.
Do unto others...a firm rule to live by!
Til next time...COTTON
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