Who's Under That Skin?

Don't cha love life's little ironies?

Case in point; 'Attended a meeting tonight at the suburban home of a fellow church member (our VP, BTW). This is in an upper-middle class subdivision. Discussion centered around several things, but in particular, issues of safety at the church parking lot in view of potentially unstable homeless individuals in the area. A good deal of speculative theory was exchanged, and a list of possible actions to be taken, keeping in mind the nature of the subject, our religious values, perception of those who felt threatened, etc.

I had to excuse myself for a job I was needed for, so left a few minutes early.

As spousal unit and myself began to get in our car, a rather large man suddenly appeared waving his arms and began bellowing at us. I was already in the car, he was on the passenger side. I jumped out of the car and got to the other side to see what was going on. He appeared irrational babbling about his driveway, then mentioned he had let the air out of my tire.

"You let the air out of my tire?" I was shocked.

"I didn't want you to just get in and drive away!"

He then attempted to tell me all the problems he was having with the people we just left.

"you let the air out of my tire?" I was still too dumbfounded to be afraid.

He sort of apologized and offered to refill it with a tank of air he had. I guess it was in the garage behind his Corvette. With that he disappeared in that direction.

I tried to see HOW flat the tire was in the dark, and after a couple of minutes, made the decision to drive to the nearest gas station to refill it.

We took it slow and got there without shredding the tire. It was on a main road, had some "interesting" characters hanging around. I'm pretty sure there were drug purchases going on there. It was kind of jammed up around the air pump, but the 3 interested parties were patient and everybody got their turn. I was last.

I looked over the car of the fellow ahead of me; it was rather pimped out, obviously a source of great pride. When he got through he (with great class) handed me the pump with a "here sir, do you need this?" Held down the hose so it didn't slap back while I filled up the tire.

The contrast was so great from the crazy man I had just left that I had to tell him the story.

"If he had a problem with his neighbor, why did he let the air out of YOUR tire?" he inquired. "He was just irrational" was all I could think of.

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Your mission (should you decide to accept it): When do you feel most secure in public? More insecure or threatened? What is it based on?