May 22, 2020

I slipped out of the house early this morning

before 7:00 am,

 to get to the grocery store when it opened.

As I approached the end of my driveway I saw this car parked up the road,

where there are no houses,

so I drove down that way to see what was going on with it.

There was a young man sitting in the car, probably looking at his phone...

he did not glance up as I passed. 

I turned around and came up behind him

and took this picture of his license plate.

Tracy was going to be leaving for work in a few minutes,

and Jed was still asleep.

All I could think of was that he would see the second car leave the garage

and know no one was at home

(which would have been incorrect, of course, but not in a good way).

I tried to contact my neighbor to ask her to keep an eye out

but she wasn't available,

so I did the only other thing I knew to do...

I called the police.

I used the non-emergency number and asked if there was anyone not busy,

if they could just drive by to check on this car.

You cannot imagine how mortified I was when I came home an hour later

to find the car parked in front of my house, 

along with another car and a truck,

and several young men unloading lumber and taking it around to the back of the house.

The owner of the house had been talking about making some repairs to the back deck, 

but I didn't know any decisions had been made in the matter.

As soon as the cold groceries were put away,

I went outside to apologize.

His response to my apology was very gracious. 

I wish I had had the courage to just ask the young man if there was anything I could do to help him...

then I would have known he was just waiting for his coworkers to show up.

Lesson learned.