First of all, I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend and ate way too much. That said, I have a story to tell. Feel free to leave feedback on how I handled the situation.
After I woke up from my turkey induced coma on Thursday, my father and I scoured the adds for great black Friday deals. Neither of us really had a lot on our list but we went in the early morning anyway, just for the fun of it, plus the father-son bonding time is sort of an annual tradition. We got his items first as we thought they would be in higher demand, then went to a local sporting goods store to pick up my Christmas present to myself. An H&R Pardner Pump 12 ga.
Later in the day (after a nap) we decided it would be a good idea to test out my new toy, *cough* I mean home defense Tool... So I needed to run to the nearest store with a sporting goods section to get some oil and ammo. This is where things got interesting.
There we were, picking out which oil I wanted, Hoppes #9 of course, and a box of Remington target loads, when this, what looked like, a thugged out meth head comes strutting up to us. I'm not one to judge on appearances, but this guy fit the bill. Scrawny, I'm talkin' Skin & Bones, dirty face and nails that looked like they had been chewed off, flat billed hat turned to the side, puffy jacket, and pants that rested somewhere between his crack and his knees.
He comes up to us and asks if he can use one of our cell phones. He was very polite, so I was polite right back. I asked why he didn't try to use the store's phone if it was an emergency (in his explanation that I left out. Apparently he was picking up a prescription for his girlfriend, and needed to get in touch with her, but his phone wasn't working.) He explained that the store wouldn't let him. The whole time he had his left hand in his jacket pocket.
My father and I looked at each other for a second and I nodded, hoping he would get the point that I wasn't giving up my strong hand to this potential threat. My father got the point and being the considerate man he is, pulled out his phone and asked the man what number he needed to reach. We weren't sure why (we had some ideas later), but he paused for a second and looked like "That's not how this is supposed to go". He complied and gave my father the number. As my dad was handing this guy the phone, I pulled back my jacket to ever so slightly reveal my EDC (just a PF9 in a nylon holster, nothing special), and this young man turned to me and immediately looked at my hip. Almost simultaneously, he pulled the phone away from his ear and said it was going straight to voice-mail. He then returned my father's phone and turned tail and all but sprinted away from us toward the end of the aisle. As we both breathed a sigh of relief that nothing had come of that, he pokes around the corner and says "Thanks," and proceeds to discuss guns, ammo, and other nonsense that he had no clue about (talking about guns he had owned that didn't exist in the caliber he was claiming)
All in all, not a horrible experience, just an eye opener for my dad. He doesn't carry and never will, but he did admit that he felt much more comfortable that I had mine. I honestly didn't know what this guy was thinking/trying to pull (if anything), but it shook us up. Our first thought was that he was trying to take the phone, but why would you approach two guys obviously shopping for firearms equipment and try to take the phone. Next we considered that he was running some sort of scanner to pick up personal information form the phone, something I would have no clue how to do or to check. But, after we calmed down, and discussed it, we came to the conclusion that, at the very least, we helped this guy out with an emergency without the need to draw my weapon. ......
Then we blasted the crap out of stuff with the 12ga.
After I woke up from my turkey induced coma on Thursday, my father and I scoured the adds for great black Friday deals. Neither of us really had a lot on our list but we went in the early morning anyway, just for the fun of it, plus the father-son bonding time is sort of an annual tradition. We got his items first as we thought they would be in higher demand, then went to a local sporting goods store to pick up my Christmas present to myself. An H&R Pardner Pump 12 ga.
Later in the day (after a nap) we decided it would be a good idea to test out my new toy, *cough* I mean home defense Tool... So I needed to run to the nearest store with a sporting goods section to get some oil and ammo. This is where things got interesting.
There we were, picking out which oil I wanted, Hoppes #9 of course, and a box of Remington target loads, when this, what looked like, a thugged out meth head comes strutting up to us. I'm not one to judge on appearances, but this guy fit the bill. Scrawny, I'm talkin' Skin & Bones, dirty face and nails that looked like they had been chewed off, flat billed hat turned to the side, puffy jacket, and pants that rested somewhere between his crack and his knees.
He comes up to us and asks if he can use one of our cell phones. He was very polite, so I was polite right back. I asked why he didn't try to use the store's phone if it was an emergency (in his explanation that I left out. Apparently he was picking up a prescription for his girlfriend, and needed to get in touch with her, but his phone wasn't working.) He explained that the store wouldn't let him. The whole time he had his left hand in his jacket pocket.
My father and I looked at each other for a second and I nodded, hoping he would get the point that I wasn't giving up my strong hand to this potential threat. My father got the point and being the considerate man he is, pulled out his phone and asked the man what number he needed to reach. We weren't sure why (we had some ideas later), but he paused for a second and looked like "That's not how this is supposed to go". He complied and gave my father the number. As my dad was handing this guy the phone, I pulled back my jacket to ever so slightly reveal my EDC (just a PF9 in a nylon holster, nothing special), and this young man turned to me and immediately looked at my hip. Almost simultaneously, he pulled the phone away from his ear and said it was going straight to voice-mail. He then returned my father's phone and turned tail and all but sprinted away from us toward the end of the aisle. As we both breathed a sigh of relief that nothing had come of that, he pokes around the corner and says "Thanks," and proceeds to discuss guns, ammo, and other nonsense that he had no clue about (talking about guns he had owned that didn't exist in the caliber he was claiming)
All in all, not a horrible experience, just an eye opener for my dad. He doesn't carry and never will, but he did admit that he felt much more comfortable that I had mine. I honestly didn't know what this guy was thinking/trying to pull (if anything), but it shook us up. Our first thought was that he was trying to take the phone, but why would you approach two guys obviously shopping for firearms equipment and try to take the phone. Next we considered that he was running some sort of scanner to pick up personal information form the phone, something I would have no clue how to do or to check. But, after we calmed down, and discussed it, we came to the conclusion that, at the very least, we helped this guy out with an emergency without the need to draw my weapon. ......
Then we blasted the crap out of stuff with the 12ga.
