Saturday Night Hustle

The wife and I are night owls on the weekends. Saturday nights for us generally entail going out somewhat late at night and gassing up the cars for the week, grocery shopping, and whatever else we decide to go do.

Before I get into tonight’s story, let me say that I know the old addage “nothing good happens after midnight”, but I tend not to abide by it very often.

Tonight we set out late to basically go for a drive after a long day of getting things done around the house, and we ended up grabbing some cash, and then heading to the gas station to fill up the car. We’ve been doing the Dave Ramsey budget to pay off some debt, so we pay cash for most things these days. I pulled the car up to the gas pump, and then went inside to pre-pay for the gas. As I was walking out, I noticed a white car had pulled into a spot near the corner of the gas station, and a male subject from the car was heading toward the doors.

I gave a cursory look around the parking lot to make sure I didn’t get run over as I walked back to the car, and as soon as I stepped out from the row of parked cars, a woman approached me from the direction of the white car.

You know the type, pretty typical tweaker who looks like she hasn’t slept for a week.

“Uhh… I’m really sorry to bother you, but uhh… my brakes just went out on my van and uhh… ”

I kept walking, with her somewhat in my peripheral vision, looking for an accomplice. Not seeing one, I firmly informed her that I couldn’t help her, and that she need not come any closer to me. Having dealt with this kind of person before, she let up easier than most, and quickly directed her attention to the single woman at the next pump who was dressed nice, driving a sports car.

Same spiel, but the sports car woman let her talk a little more than I did, and we heard that she was given a ride by some guy to the gas station (you know, since her brakes went out…) and she needed money to call a cab.

Denied again.

While she was telling this story I noticed that the white car that pulled up as I was exiting the store was still in the parking spot, running, lights on, windows down. You don’t usually leave an unattended car in that condition at a gas station late at night in a major metropolitan area.

At this point, tweaker lady moves her attention to two ladies who were filling up their car on the opposite side of the pump that I was using. Same story again, and it looked like they handed her some cash after hearing her story. She lingered in the area for a moment puffing on her cigarette, when I noticed the male subject who got out of the white car as I was exiting was now on his way back out of the store. He walked to the white car, and got into… THE PASSENGER SIDE! Tweaker then got into the drivers seat, and began to back out of her space.

My pump finished about this time, and I was getting back into the car with my wife, just in time to see the woman who had given her money quickly approach the car window, appearing to have words for Tweaker, who now pretty obviously had made up her story about the broken down van, or had made really good friends with the guy who gave her a ride and he was now letting her drive his car… You be the judge.

I pulled away from the pump and left at this point.

As a general rule, I don’t give cash to anyone in a parking lot. As a kid from a small town, there was a time when I was wet behind the ears that I may have given her the $5 bill in my pocket, but as time has passed living in a big city I’ve learned the scams.

I’ve had a few other people hustle me like this in years past asking for money for food. The couple times I’ve offered to go inside and buy them food, they’ve declined, so I don’t bother with that anymore either.

All in all, I was pretty happy with how I handled the situation. I may have let her get a little too close to me before I sent her packing, but I kept enough of a reactionary gap that should she make a move, I could have countered it. I scanned for anyone approaching from the other direction, and once I got to my car I used the car, gas pump, and hose to keep anyone from approaching behind me.

Tonight it was just a tweaker hustling for cash, but you never know when it’s a distraction for an upcoming attack. Stay frosty.