That's right! "A sitting duck!" That's the way one of our local tv news reporters described me on the local news last week.
Wednesday afternoon as I was driving home from picking up the kids from Mayfair, I saw that my gas gauge was approaching empty. I pulled into the Kangaroo Gas Station and proceeded to pump my gas so that I could get home. That's when the fun began.
While I was pumping my gas, I was quickly approached by Janine Reyes from NewsChannel 19. She asked if she could ask me a quick question and I said sure. To my surprise, she darted off and came back in a couple of seconds with a man holding a news video camera. As he started taping, she informed me of a woman that had her purse stolen right out of her passenger seat as she was pumping gas that morning. She asked me if I usually kept my purse in my passenger seat and if I locked my doors when I filled up my van with gas. I told her that usually my purse was not in the front seat and that I always locked my doors. She then proceeded with her camera man around the passenger side of my van to uncover the truth.
My driver's side door was still open and I looked through my van to the other side and was shocked to see my purse sitting out and open in my passenger seat and that my doors were unlocked. (I honestly thought about locking them before Janine made it around, but realized that she would hear the automatic locks if I pushed the button). So, I just stood there while the camera man zoomed in on my unlocked passenger door van with my purse sitting in the seat! I was busted! The news lady had proved me wrong. She then interviewed me and asked for my name. I was so humiliated! After she left, I pumped my gas and left totally embarrassed.
At 6:00 on the NewsChannel 19 news, my interview aired. To my surprise, I was the ONLY woman that they had interviewed that day that had left my door unlocked and my purse in the passenger seat! I was proven wrong and was called "a sitting duck".
I hope you learn from my mistake. Don't be guilty of being a "sitting duck". You never know when a criminal might strike (or when a news lady with a camera will embarrass you!)