Since this has happened, you will be better prepared if something like this happens again. You can learn from this! And so can others reading!
I learned it in my own life too - I was in my yard one morning, weeding a flower bed. It was around 8:30 on a week day and most people in the neighborhood would be at work. I was head down, concentrating on the weeds when I heard a male voice asking if I needed help. I looked up to see a man about 10 feet away at the corner of my house. I was blocked in -- house on one side, privacy hedge on the other, fence at my back. I stood up and said 'No, thanks - I didn't need any help'. He said 'Are you sure?" - I replied again I didn't need help.
Instead of leaving, he put a foot forward to advance toward me. I was close enough to the back yard gate that I reached over as if I were going to open it and rattled it - bringing my German Shepard around. She was beautiful gray with a black saddle and had a horrific bark when she was alerted! When she hit the fence, he hit the road. The gate was padlocked (rusted shut), so I really wouldn't have been able to let her out; but thankfully he didn't know it.
That taught me a lesson about the naivety of thinking I would be safe at home 'in my own yard'. It was scarey but could have been worse without having my dog that day. After that I never worked in the front yard again without her out there leashed to me.
I have learned sadly we can not give strangers the benefit of the doubt. We need to consider scenarios and how we'll react - in that event - so that the response will become second nature. I'm not saying that we have to be paranoid, but prepared. This is the world we live in!
As for door to door salesmen - I rarely open the door to anyone I don't know. I have a glass window I talk through to them and if I do open the door - I have my big dog in the hallway with me.
If I'm approached at a gas station by a panhandler -- I respond firmly, making eye contact - "NO I can not help you". Firm and LOUD - I want other people in the vicinity to hear me. Weirdos don't want attention called to them and they have backed off.
When I'm loading groceries in the car - I open the car door, then place the cart behind me so that it is between me and the road.
When I'm approaching a red light or stop sign - if there is a car in front of me - I stop so that I can leave space to get around that car if I need to - so I won't be boxed in and have less chance being carjacked.
I back into my driveway so that the hatch is closest to the door- so especially if I'm unloading things after dark, I'm closer to the house instead of closer to the street.
I don't carry a purse, I keep my money and ID on my body, so I can't be purse snatched.
As I write all this, I imagine you're wondering "Good grief, where does she live!" - I live in a quiet little town where bad things really only happen occasionally.
But I also live in this world where bad stuff happens all the time. Over the course of the last 20 years - my personal experience has been -- the thing with that guy in my yard, my house was burglarized once, I was robbed in my own driveway a different time and my neighbors called in a drunk who they saw milling around my yard (he was on the wrong street -- wrong house) - and it resulted in my house and yard being covered with cops.
It happens. All I'm saying is people need to be prepared as much as they can to know how to react if approached. Trust the red flags you feel. It's like building muscle memory. It is not in our nature to be 'rude' - as it may seem we are when considering reactions to these scenarios. We have to PLAN to be as safe as we can be. Pray for peace but prepare for war!
