A Target at Target; A Scary Story.

Colleen Coble over at Girls Write Out, told a scary story and asked if anyone had any similarly scary, true life stories.

This got me to thinking, and I decided I have to tell on one of my sister in laws. We’ll just call her Sally. It is more funny than scary, but it was scary to her.

Sally was in the Target parking lot heading for her car with a handful of packages. As she was on her way to her nondescript white MPV van, a man came up to her and asked for spare change; he was a scary looking homeless guy.

She said no and he began to get angry, asking her in a more forceful way for some spare change, surely she had some change she could spare, she had just bought all that stuff! Scary homeless man was scaring Sally.

So she did what any hardened suburban wife would do. She ran for her car! She opened her door without having to unlock it; which was odd because Sally knew she had locked it. After she hit the door lock button, she threw her packages on the passenger seat and tried to quickly start the car. Odd, the ignition would not turn. Hummm? Just then Sally noticed a cup that was not hers in the cup holder, and a strange jacket on the passenger seat under her packages. Realization dawned…THIS WAS NOT HER MINIVAN!

Sally looked out the window and saw her minivan sitting pretty-as-you-please about two rows up.

Fortunately the homeless man had moved on to greener pastures and was begging from other Target shoppers heading for their cars. Unfortunately, he was doing his begging between the car she was in and the car that she actually owned.

So Sally waited in the car that was not hers, for the man to move from his current panhandling position, praying all the while that the real owner of the van she was in did not come out of the store.

Her prayers were answered, the homeless man moved on to greener parking lots and Sally was able to go to the car she actually owned, unmolested by scary homeless men or irate van owners.

All in all, things ended without incident. And when Sally told us the story we all laughed at her and definitely not with her. Sally still could not see the humor in the situation!