Most recently, I was heading out for a nice dinner with my sister and grandmother, when we had to wait for an elderly man to cross the sidewalk behind our vehicle (my sister was driving, of course). We wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, he stops and waves us to go first.
As we back out, he begins to step towards the vehicle, gesturing for us to roll down the window.
Now this is usually the point where I would lock my doors (I'm a door locker) and crack my window just enough to hear him, but not enough where he could reach his hand in and strangle me (did I mention that I have Cindy as my mother?). I do neither of these things because the man seems harmless and the effort it took for him to even make the "roll down your window" gesture convinces me that I could fight him if I needed to.
We roll down our windows to hear him ask politely, "Would you give me a ride home?"
He continues with, "I thought I could walk the whole way, but my legs are so tired and I don't think I will make it."
We couldn't just leave him there!
I open the door beside me and he climbs in. As he does this, my grandmother pipes up with his name. Oh, small towns.
"I haven't seen you in ages, " declares my grandma. "I thought you had moved away or something."
"Nope, I still live in the same place," replies Joe.
Grandma starts to give my sister directions to his house - just a few blocks away.
"Were you in the hospital or something?" inquires my grandma, pointing to the medical-style bracelet on the man's wrist.
He quickly places his other hand over the band and replies, "No, no, this was from a while ago. I just haven't taken it off." (because that isn't at all suspicious)
I got a good look before he covered it.
We get him to his house and wait in the car to make sure that he gets into the house alright. As we are watching him shuffle around to each door, trying not to let us see that he is locked-out, I mention that his wrist band said the name of a local nursing home.
"OH!" gasps my grandmother (she does a great horrified gasp).
I hop out of the car and over to the man, asking him if he lives at the nursing home. He becomes irate with me, but admits that he doesn't have a key.
To make a long story shorter: A neighbour sees us and comes over, surprised to see him, mentioning that he sees the Joe's children when they come to mow his lawn and check-up on the house. He gives me a knowing smile and sits with the elderly man to catch-up. I ask if everything is ok and if we can leave. The man assures me that he will be fine.
Back en-route to dinner, we decide to stop in at the nursing home to make sure that they know what is going on. After a few "Oh, we were looking everywhere for him!"s and a couple of "We never would have found him!"s we were on our way - with a little less faith in the staff at that facility.
I think they need to change the code to get out from the default 1111.
At least he wasn't as angry with us as the man Liz and I found at midnight in Calgary one time.
Another story for another day.
