Several weeks ago I had to run to the bank to deposit a check someone wrote us for a bond, which is normally a fairly easy thing to do. It was 9:30pm and it wasn't an unusual thing for me to ride right up to the ATM and make a quickie deposit.
I always look around to see who's in the parking lot because, after all, I usually carry large sums of cash on me. I noticed this dark SUV in the parking lot with a couple guys walking around it. I thought it was strange, but I thought maybe they were cleaning the car out while a friend was at the ATM. When I came around the building I noticed the SUV had moved to a neighboring parking lot and it looked like it had stopped facing the exit. Another guy was kind of lingering on the front side of the bank. Feeling the hair on the back of my neck rise, I decided to take note of where my gun was, which was in the trunk because I had been through the car wash earlier. I stopped the car just before the ATM and felt confident that I could get to the trunk and hands on my gun fast enough just in case this turned into a bad ATM camera video. I kept one eye on the SUV and the other eye on the strange guy lingering. When I got out of the car, the lingering guy decided to move up kind of behind me.
I mean, I can see why I'd be a good target...lone female in dark parking lot going to the ATM. I figured, he would wait until I was at the ATM before he tried anything, but this guy was a little jumpy.
I got my gun out of the back of my trunk and put it straight down against my side. I didn't want to appear to be swinging it around, but I did want to the guy lingering around to notice I had something in my hand that may not be too friendly. It worked, because he noticed something and stopped. It was like he was thinking. Well, this guy wasn't too stupid because he turned tail and ran back to the waiting SUV, which pulled away and went on it's way down Midlothian Turnpike.
I got back in the car and preceded to make my deposit, secure in the fact that if someone was going to rob me, I was certainly going to share my thoughts with him. Of course, I would never want to shoot anyone, but I would protect myself and my money.
