I strive to keep this blog positive. I made the sub headline to read “My Totally Fun Blog,” not just to sound like a valley girl (get it?), but because I wanted a fun blog. That said, I feel I must talk about a fairly un-fun thing that happened to me the other day.
As I was running a car stopped and the driver, a young man, said, “Excuse me,” in a very polite tone of voice. I thought he wanted to ask directions. People often do stop me when I’m walking or running to ask directions, and I direct them as best I can. I approached this car in a helpful spirit, and the man said, “Have you ever seen one of these?” Ahem.
This is a family blog, so I will only say, I have seen them. I do not have one.
I got away from the car fast, before he could show me anything else. I automatically looked at his license plate and noted it. He drove away. I turned around, ran home, and called the police.
What a disgusting thing to happen! I will add this: what I saw might not have been real and might not have been his. I took the merest glance at it and that was enough for me. My disgust remains unabated.
Here I am, writing this blog in which I go on and on about how wonderful it is to live in a town where you can just go for a walk or a run, and then I meet up with some pervert. Thank goodness something like this didn’t happen to me till now: I’m 47 and have been around the block. If it would have happened when I was 15 and innocent (I was), I would have been devastated.
I suppose as encounters with perverts go, this one was pretty tame. I know many more terrible things can and do happen to women out running or walking. This to me was a reminder of that. If the man meant it as a joke, it was not a funny one, and it was obviously one I was not meant to share. A male co-worker told me that any way you looked at it, this was wrong, and I did the right thing to call the police.
I went running the next day with no incident. I will continue to run and to walk my dog unaccompanied. I won’t even refuse to give directions to any passing motorists. But it is going to take me a while before I feel as comfortable about it as I used to feel. And that makes me sad.
Mohawk Valley Girl 
MVG, this was an important one to share. It’s easy to focus on the good to the point that we forget the human capacity for evil — more specifically, the human trait whereby causing someone else distress is the source of personal pleasure. There are such people out there, and it does us no good to forget that.
What remains positive here is that it is your first-ever such encounter, that you wisely did exactly the right thing by calling the police with ID on this person, and that you were not otherwise harmed in any way.
I agree that this experience was an important one to talk about. Those of us who live in small towns, and have grown up trusting our neighbors, need a wake-up-call every now and again. I am so, so very glad that you were not physically hurt, or worse. Take care my friend. D