Interesting situation yesterday

[talisman]

Could have been a hitchhikers guide to the galaxy fan.

It was towel day recently.

Like Forrest, I think I would have just straight up asked him. I've found the direct approach to be best in just about any situation where I am slightly unsure of what is going on.

That is definitely weird.

[likeitfast55]

So I stopped by the DFW National Cemetery to visit my dads grave yesterday and minutes after getting there I hear a truck pulling up behind me. This isn't altogether unusual since he's buried near the street and near the beginning of that section so I'm used to it. But what was different was hearing someone coming up behind me so I turned around and it was an older Mexican guy, maybe 10-15 years older than me, dressed in slacks and a button up shirt.

He started talking to me in Spanish (and for those of you who know me I don't habla) and the first thing I noticed is he had a medium size towel covering his left hand. Alarms are going off in my head and I stepped back and looked around to make sure he was by himself which he was. He continued talking to me for another minute before I stopped him and told him I don't speak Spanish, the whole time I'm looking at his left hand.

So he starts to give me a sob story that he lost his job that day and his wife doesn't know yet and I'm still looking at his left hand. I start to rotate a little bit so my left side is facing him so I can use my left arm to block or grab him but still keep my right side and arm free so I can reach my gun. He started asking asking me who I was visiting and I told him it was my dad. He goes on to tell me that his son served in Afghanistan and when he came back he was never right in his head. At first I thought his son was buried there but than he said something else to lead me to believe he was still alive. The guys story wasn't panning out in my head and all this time I'm still looking at his left hand covered by a towel.

So finally he came back to his story about losing his job and I'm ready to get him out of there. I reach into my left pocket and pull out a ten I had in there and handed it to him. He looked at it and that's when he put the towel in his pocket and shook my hand and thanked me. He said a few kind words about my dad and his military service and left.

As I watched him drive off I wasn't sure what just happened. For one I was worried that I got to fixated on him and that someone could have snuck around behind me. Second, I don't know what the deal was with the towel wrapped around his hand. Was he going to try and rob me by saying he had a gun underneath the towel? I don't know if I should have acted more aggressive with my posture or stayed calm the way I did. I almost thought about putting my hand on my gun but still keeping it covered by my shirt and holstered.

I'm a little concerned though about what happened as my mom goes to the cemetery a couple of times a week as we live nearby. I'll definitely keep an eye out for him and his white truck. What do you guys think about it? Am I being a little paranoid or do you think something might have been up besides simply asking for money?

Jose, you are a very level headed guy. If you had reason to be uncomfortable, well your first instinct is usually the right one.

Don't lose that operator..............................

[YALE]

6 more months.

Nice!

[Probie]

Nice!

Debating on taking my class now and mailing off info on the day I turn 21

[AnthonyS]

Anyone sneaking up behind you in a cemetary is suspicious. A towel wrapped around their hand makes it moreso.

You did good.

Anyone who isn't keeping an eye out for their own safety and that of their family in the world we live in is stupid. I don't like to get into details of what I see or what has happened to my wife recently, but if you start looking and observing harder you will see lots of undesirable things happening in Dallas.

You did good, and were probably much nicer to the guy than I would have been.

[YALE]

Debating on taking my class now and mailing off info on the day I turn 21

What's to debate? Get ahead of the curve.

[phaux]

Debating on taking my class now and mailing off info on the day I turn 21

Do it to it.

[KBScobravert]

Suspect for sure Jose. I think I would have had my right hand near or on my pistol for that. Nothing wrong with being ahead of the situation before it develops the wrong way.

[kingjason]

Sir for your own safety you might want to take that towel off your hand. I keep one in my pocket all the time and have my hand on it a lot. It's my other pocket toy. To be honest I would have been ok with you putting your hand on your shit and showing it to him. You were in fear for your life at that point. Fuck that mother fucker he knew what he was doing. Just wrap your mind around what may come next. You might have to drop that guy if you call his hand. You played it cool and smart but you had every right to go another direction with it. I would have called the police also and had him stopped as soon as he pulled off.

[Sean88gt]

Forrest is spot on, go with your gut. I seem to get more paranoid as time goes on. My dad and I were talking last night about whether safety has really diminished or if people were just ignorant to reality when he grew up. I'm convinced that the world is going to shit. I don't let my kids do most of the things I got away with, including taking off on bikes for 10 hours with locations unknown, that would panic the hell out of me.

Then again, I'm part of the milk-carton generation...

[bird_dog0347]

[Baron Von Crowder]

Man, it was federal property, and a gun free zone. Therefore, he couldnt have had a gun under that towel.

I havent been carrying much lately, and have noticed I get much more nervous about the shady looking people at gas stations,etc.

[Roscoe]

Money.

[GhostTX]

meanwhile, I would have straight up said, "what's up with the towel man? you're freaking me out" with my hand on my pistol

I definitely need to be assertive when I get the pan-handlers and ensuring I keep the distance between me. But I tend to let that "get them to shut up and go" when the sob story comes out. I really just need to say GTFO of here.

I was about to say, awareness is about all you can do right now, hehehe. Nothing wrong with that, just got to thinking.

And carry a good knife.

[Ratt]

I think you did well to stay calm.

In situations like that I try to kind of wander around so I can scan around me without turning my head away from the main person. I'll walk past my car if I'm in a parking lot, act like I don't know where I parked ect.

I try to stay alert. My wife thinks I'm crazy.

it's probably gotten you out of countless situations that you didn't realize were "situations"

This. My wife thought I was crazy until I stopped her friend from getting pick-pocketed in China. She was walking around with her friend in their hometown in China when we visited last year, and I was walking about 6 or 8 feet behind them with my wife's little cousin. We were in a semi-crowded outdoor shopping mall in the heart of the city, when I noticed a guy brush past me and slow down to stand outside of our little square of people, but between us in the back and them in the front. He kinda glanced around and one of the glances was at my wife's purse, and then he puts his left hand in his pocket and keeps walking past all of us.

Then two guys come up from our left, get directly behind my wife and her friend, and between the two of them and the two of us (which put them still about 4 to 6 feet in front of me). One guy is looking around, and I see the other guy take what looked like grill tongs out of his pocket and reach towards my wife's friend's pocket, which housed her iPhone 5s.

I yelled my wife's name in Chinese as loud as I could, and she and her friend turned around like who the fuck is yelling my name in Chinese, and the two guys look at them, turn around and look at me, and at this point I'm thinking quick about what I should do next, because although I don't carry a gun here, I do carry a good knife, but we are in China so I am without it. So I started steaming toward the guy and my wife's friend yelled at me to stop, looked at the pick-pocket crew thinking I'm probably about to go to Chinese prison for being an American who assaulted to Chinese guys, and started yelling at them, and they ran off from the way they came in. They followed us for a good half hour before we found a cop to tell about it, who chased them off for good.

The wife and her friend didn't believe me that they were still following us until I grabbed the cop and in broken Chinese told him that at least two guys were following us. Now she doesn't doubt me anymore.

I figured the first guy was the scout, the hand in the pocket was the signal, and then his buddies go to town on unsuspecting people. My wife's friend later told me she didn't let me go at them because I would have definitely ended up in jail for a good long while, and that pick-pockets in the area are known to have stabbed people who interrupted then and interfered with their shady dealings.