Mary and I took another trip to Chatsworth yesterday. Chatsworth is probably my least favorite of all the Chats. It’s also the home of the LTU counterpart of Mary’s school. It’s not that I mind the school so much. It’s the drive. I have two herniated disks in my neck and the vibration of the car just aggravates the injury to no end.
Upon returning home we realized that the refrigerator had gone out. The odd thing is that we didn’t freak out. We just dealt with it. In Vegas that would have been cause for a sailor’s streak of swearing and lamenting our horrible fate of choosing Vegas as a place to live. In fact since moving back to California the world has seemed a much better place to me. Despite wildfires and grocery store picket lines.
The other thing that we learned was that when Mary Belle went to the drugstore she ran into a strange man standing in the parking lot of the elementary school that girls attend. The man was parked at the far end of the lot. Standing by his car with the trunk open. A man in his late 20’s to early 30’s.
He kept trying to get her to come to him. He started asking her where she was going, how old she was, where did she live, where did she work and several times did she like to “party”? She felt threatened. Strange men standing by cars with their trunks open asking untoward questions have that effect on her I presume.
She described him to me and I did a composite sketch of him.
I went to the school this morning and spoke to principal about it. The school was not very pleased to hear that there was a strange man soliciting women in their parking lot. They suggested I call the Laguna Niguel police, tell them what happened and show them my sketch.
I called them. The officer that answered the phone was about to call the S.W.A.T team out until I told him that Mary Belle was nineteen. Apparently if you are over eighteen men can say whatever they want to you. That the man had not broken any laws and that he was probably just looking for a date.
I asked him if offering teenagers drugs is okay as long as the teen is over eighteen? He informed me that should the officer see it happening the answer is no. Then added, that the guy was probably somebody at the school’s brother or something.
I don’t believe that and either does Mary Belle. So I emailed the Chief of Police Service Liaison and told her the story. My main concern is that a strange thirty-something year old man hanging around the elementary school parking seems at the very least suspicious to me. If not just downright criminal.
Oddly enough Mary Belle ran into a police officer at the restaurant near where she works. She told him the story and he also agreed that it was suspicious and said that he was going to tell whomever he tells about something like that to keep an extra eye on the school.
Despite all of that I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. I’m eternally grateful for all I’ve been given in this life and just seem to really be feeling that lately. I hope it’s the same for everybody.
