What would Oprah do?

You’re mother told you never get in the car with strangers. Oprah and Phil Donahue (or was it Sallie Jesse Raphael?) told you to never get out of your car when strangers are telling you that your bumper is about to fall off and that they can fix it out of the kindness of their hearts as I am pulling out of the same parking lot. Oops, I mean “you.”

Yes, I fell for it. And according to the security guard whom I had escort me to my car 20 minutes later after the whole ordeal began, it was the oldest hustle in the neighborhood. There I am, minding my own business after a long day’s work in the ‘hood when three friendly looking addicts pull up next to me in a beat up pick-up truck as we are both exiting the parking lot. And somehow or another they convinced me that my bumper was falling off my car and they could fix it. Now, I knew that my bumper was a little loose. It fell victim a few weeks prior to a taller than usual parking space barrier. When I went to back up, my bumper decided to hang out awhile and well, there you go. A nut, or bolt, or some other critical piece of hardware that the Volkswagen dealership was willing to replace for nothing short of my life’s savings popped off and left my bumper flapping quietly in the breeze. I convinced myself that I could live with it because my new year’s resolution was to only use my savings for really important things (and it was also to stop considering sales at Anthropologie as ‘really important things’). No one was going to notice my hanging bumper but me, right? Enter: my three new best friends.

After I parked my car and got out, and two of them started walking towards me with a power drill in hand, I started to think this was a bad idea. Best case scenario my co-workers start to file out of the building and I look like a lunatic for letting a truck full of dangerous looking men work on my car in a parking lot. Worst case scenario…well, let’s just say there were a lot of worst case scenarios going through my head. Especially when I learned this gesture was not out of the kindness of their hearts and I had, as usual, no cash on hand. For some reason when I offered them a check, that wasn’t a good enough method of payment. (And thank God for that, because in retrospect handing them a single piece of paper with my address, phone number, checking account, and bank routing number on it was not such a good idea. I might as well have handed them the keys to my apartment and told them I was a virgin. Worst case scenario #11.)

Fortunately there was a grocery store adjacent to our parking lot and I convinced them that I would drive over there BY MYSELF and fetch them some cash. I am sure they wanted it to buy some Kentucky Fried Chicken on their way home from an equally long days work. I made a few phone calls on the drive over to the grocery store, just in case I wound up missing or dead or worse, my mother and father on the east coast would know what had happened to me. I am such a responsible daughter. As I am walking into the grocery store I am struck with paranoia over using an ATM that is not registered with the Bank of America. I have a truck full of men waiting for me in the parking lot, waiting for me to bring them cash, no less, and I am all of a sudden worried about ATM fees. I verified with the security guard (see paragraph two) that I could, in fact, get cash back if I purchased something. He looked at the deranged looking woman in front of him who was sweating profusely, using pressured speech, shaking, and clearly in the middle of a manic episode (me) and said simply, “Um, yeah.”

A 5-lbs bag of sugar and box of Cocoa Pebbles later, I am now at the cash register trying to both politely answer the man standing in line behind me who is curious about my sugar addiction and explain frantically to my dad on the phone that I am on the verge of being abducted in the Food4Less parking lot over a loose bumper, when my dad asks me the most obvious question in the world, “Why don’t you go get a security guard?” Right! He and I are old friends. However, at this point I am now already out of the store and have a visual of the pick up truck, parked conveniently next to my only method of escape. So I do the only sane possible thing. I grab the arm of a 16-year old boy who is collecting the shopping carts in the parking lot and blurt out something along the lines of, “PleasehelpmethesemenarewaitingformetogivethemmoneyforfixingmycareventhoughIdidn’twantthemtoandnowIthinktheymighthurtmeordootherbadthingslikefollowmehomeortrytostealmycar.” For some reason he also thought the security guard was a good idea. (Although probably for himself.)

In the mean time, the parking lot mechanics have pulled up to the front of the store where I am in the midst of my full blown meltdown. I threw a wad of cash into their front window and I think maybe told them to ‘leave me alone and don’t follow me home or try to steal my car.’ What I got in return was a “God bless you, ma’am.” (Shit, maybe they were just interested in hitting the KFC drive-through on their way home.) Even so, when I saw the security guard, let’s call him my Knight in Shining Polyester, come out the front door towards me, I knew I had to hold on for dear life. What if they decided to turn around? What if they were in the mood for some Cocoa Pebbles and a bag of sugar?

Again, I repeated something akin to what I had divulged to the very confused shopping cart boy, although this time I was officially hysterical. “Please, just walk me to my car in case they come back for more.” I am pretty sure Knight in Shining Polyester was trying to suppress a laugh, but he humored me and even offered some sound biblical advice. (And no, it was not: For the love of God, woman!) He made sure I was safely in my car, laughing his confirmation to my final question, which was: Do you think I’m the crazy lady in the parking lot?

In any event, I suppose I did spare my savings account since getting my bumper drilled back together only cost me $25, although, the panic attack did cost a bit more than that. There was the $20 mani/pedi I had to get to calm down and the $10 pizza I had to pick up on the way home since there was NO WAY I was cooking now. Add to it the cost of the groceries I picked up in the store. And my dignity.

But how do you put a price on your safety? Here’s a tip: don’t roll down your window when a truck full of creepy looking men try to offer you car advice. Or probably any kind of advice for that matter. Knight in Shining Polyester suggested I try that. And that advice was free.