you're welcome

Today I was riding the el home and there was a father who was entertaining his young son with his iPhone.

Sitting by the doors. Playing stupid games. Pretty oblivious to everything.

And I saw a man. A young man in a track suit, get up, and for absolutely no reason, move to the completely other side of the train to sit near this father and son. No reason for that. He had his own seat to himself where nobody was bothering him on the other side of the train.

So my guard was instantly up. Granted, I happen to be a *little* bit paranoid after my phone was stolen and I saw someone's phone stolen and I've heard eighteen million stories of people's phones being stolen.

But I thought, he wouldn't steal it out of the hands of a little kid, would he?

And then I stopped being so naive.

And I thought about something my friend and I had just talked about... about doing something. How often do we sit there and not do anything? When my phone got stolen a woman on the train said to me afterwards, "I thought they seemed suspicious!" A whole lot of good that did me after the fact!

So do I wait until they get their phone stolen to say that I thought that guy looked suspicious? That a feeling in my gut told me he was up to no good?

Do I walk over and say "Hey, phones get stolen on here a lot, you should probably put that away?"

I thought about that.

Instead what I did was get up and go stand by the door. And I made eye contact with the potential thief. Just to let him know that I was aware. That somebody was paying attention, even if the dad and his son weren't.

I didn't say anything and really I didn't do anything. But the guy couldn't have made it out the door with the phone without getting past me.

Sure enough, he got off at Central (the iPhone thieving capital of the world.) And he sort of slowed down as he walked by the kid but then looked up and saw me blocking his quick exit and kept on walking.

Now is it possible that this guy was just a genuine nice guy? Is it possible that I am crazy and paranoid? Absolutely. I will be the first to admit that. But thankfully, now we will never know. And it took very little effort on my part, but the guilt would have killed me if their phone HAD been stolen!