Stranger Danger, An Easy Mark?

Today I pulled my van into the garage as we finished our ice cream cones. I shut off the engine and opened my door. We climbed out and went to the back door of our apartment building. “Hey!” I have a terrible startle reflex so I almost jumped out of my skin when the smiling young man shouted to me. He must have been around the back of the garages because I didn’t see him when I pulled in. We were ten feet from the door and I had my keys in my hand. He stopped a few feet away. “Hey, I just saw you and I wanted to say how awesome I think your blog is.”

“Thanks.” I said as I glanced past his shoulder to my van. I didn’t close the garage door. That’s exactly how it was supposed to be. I smiled to him as I moved my thumb over the panic button for my car alarm. Denver moved towards him talking, but I calmly mentioned our safety word and he stopped, turned, and went straight to the door of the building. That caught our friend off guard, but I interrupted before he could question what I had just done any further. “Thank you for reading my work then, have a good one.” I shifted my body toward the door but did not turn completely away from him.

“Oh, hey, I was wondering, could I use your phone? My car broke down.” He took a step closer.

“Sorry, battery’s dead. There’s a grocery store, 8 blocks that way,” I point and make two decided steps to the door and near my son. My thumb is on the panic button and the keys themselves dangle from the small side of my fist. He’s younger than me and more toned, I expect he’s faster than me too. His gaze follows my gesture and then he looks around the parking lot. I could tell he didn’t belong here and his body language said he was nervous.

“Hey, Dave.” My upstairs neighbor said from her window. Now it was his turn to jump out of his skin.

“Ok, that way?” and off he went with a nod and “Thanks.” I would say he was up to no good, if this event ever actually happened. It didn’t.

We do have a safe word and our neighbors do look out for each other. It’s a good thing and it’s sad you can’t find it everywhere. Naturally I’m not going to mention my safe word, that would be silly wouldn’t it? But you should have one with your children.

Some statistics and stereotypes say that a person with Asperger’s syndrome is an easy target for criminal behavior. They’re gullible and may not know a bad idea when they come across one. I’m here to show you that experience can bridge the gap on this. If you know about the statistic I just mentioned you might also know that practically all people with Asperger’s have a special interest that they have a hard time breaking away from. I was a very fantasy oriented child and that gave me a lot of trouble in my youth. I took an intense interest, however, in the martial arts and detective work. I wanted to be a detective will all my fiber and being. I knew anything you cared to know about being a detective and that grew. I now have 19 years experience under my belt to include time spent in the service with a military police company and years serving a city as an Animal Control Officer (Nationally Certified). I’ve been trained in collecting evidence and interviewing suspects. So, to look at me, this is the last thing you might think. You might even think that I’m an easy mark for being so open here on the internet.

Well, I am disabled and socially clumsy, my hands shake all the time and I’m kind of hard to figure out just by looking, but I am educated and experienced. And I teach my son as well. And when someone I don’t know says hello to my son, I ask them how they know him and where from. I’ve done this with at least three of the lunchroom staff for Wilson since I’ve lived here. I’m used to being underestimated and flattery from people I don’t know out of the blue sets off little alarms in my head. I’m not prone to invite strangers to my home and I’m pretty good at discovering what a person is about. My son goes no where without me or an adult I personally have met and have all contact information for. As I post on my security experiences I will share some of what I know and how you too can protect your family like Fort Knox without all the bars.