Not Very Good Odds

Today I had a meeting with my son's teachers.  While I was there we got into a discussion on E.  They asked if anything had been going on at home because they had noticed E had kind of lost her pep for a while, but that they had noticed this past week she had been more like her old self.  Light, happy, extremely inquisitive and calm.

I shared with them what had happened and they were shocked, both that it had happened and that neither E nor I, had told them.  They were shocked, but here's the deal, they shouldn't have been.

There were 3 of us in the room at this point and immediately after I shared our story one of the teachers gets tears in her eyes and tells me some guy punched her 90 year old father for money.  90.  In broad daylight. 

When she is done telling her story, I look at the other teacher who has tears in her eyes and she tells me a story of a man who  approached her with some bullshit (her word) story about wanting money.  It was dusk and he came around her car, she told him to stop, he did, he asked for money and then took a few more steps forward.  What he didn't know was that her son was on the other side of the car.  He is a big strapping guy (A Marine now) and he said, "Can I help you?"  The guy said no and left.  He did not say, oh, yes, I am looking for gas money, can you all help me out.  He left.

She said she froze.  She had no idea what to do and if her son hadn't been there, she would have been toast.

So, 3 out of 3. That is 100%. 100% of the people in that room were victims of a crime, 2 of them violent crimes. It is worth noting that none of us were in a bad neighborhood, at midnight, soliciting drugs or sex.  We were all average people going about their daily business who were attacked or nearly attacked in the same town on different days.

I wondered if teacher number 2 had the same bad guy as me because the stories were so similar, but her guy was young with dark hair, so no. 3 victims. 3 different bad guys.  

I think most people think, it won't happen to me.  They think, heck, it hasn't even happened to anyone I know.  Except that it does and it has.

I am close to these two women.  We have been through a lot with my 3 kiddos and we have shared our lives, but none of us told the others what had happened to us. You don't know when you might find yourself in a sticky situation and you have no idea how many people in your immediate circle of friends already have.

You can take the gamble, you can roll the dice, you can lie to yourself, but know this, it's a mighty dangerous game your playing.  You might want to think about how to stack the deck in your favor.