The Nerve of People

[Just Send It]

Yep.

When I lived in Portland, that above ground cesspool, I had a guy at 11 o’clock at night walk up behind me in the back of the shop. I’ll never forget it.

I grew up in a pretty rough part of Portland. It was the dog days of July or August and I had to assemble my transmission. I waited for an hour or so after the Sun went down so it was tolerable.

The garage had three doors. The big door up front. A single car door on the side and a man door in the rear that opened up to the patio.

I had all three doors wide open and fans in each one. I had the radio on. And I was in the back corner of the shop.

Im focused on what I was doing and I feel a tapping on my shoulder. I turn around and some dude with a metal clipboard is right there. If he had a knife he could have stuck me. If he had a gun he could have shot me. Hell, he could have grabbed a tool and beat me with it.

I turned around and saw it was a dude. So I got him by the throat with one hand and I grabbed his free arm (his left) and I drug his *** out to the curb.

I threw him on the ground and smacked his head twice off the driveway as an attention getter. Once he was listening and not squealing like a ***** I asked him WTF he was doing. He says “selling magazine subscriptions”!!

So I bonked his head on the driveway a couple more times and asked if he had any weapons. He said he didn’t so I let him get to his knees.

I kicked his clipboard thing to open it and it had all blank paper in it. So back down to the driveway we go. A couple more bonks and I said who are you working with? Where is the MF’er? Is he armed?

He says no man, it’s just me. It’s just me. I get him back up to his knees and I tell him evidently you didn’t see the gun sitting on the workbench did you? I said the next time I see you in this neighborhood you’ll be getting shot. Get it? There will be no more grace.

I got him up and watched him walk off.

What I didn’t see was my friend and his wife were out with the stroller walking their daughter. That kid would not sleep if she didn’t get a ride in the car or a stroll.

They just happened to be walking up the street when I drug that moron out to the curb. So they saw everything from us coming out of the garage until he walked off.

Sadly, I didn’t have a gun. The following Monday I bought a gun. That was 1995.

The moral of the story is you did the right thing. You don’t let anyone just walk up on you like that. Thats some bold ****.

Protect yourself. Trust no one who does things like that.

You were right. Any other response would have been weak. And stupid.

100% Exactly

I regret nothing. I work my *** off for my stuff. No nepotism in this house. Mommy & Daddy didn't give me ****. No inheritances, no free rides. Every dollar I've earned by going to work at 5am and coming home after my family goes to sleep.

So when some creep rolls up into my garage looking like he's up to no good, I will react ferociously to protect my space. No one is taking anything from me - not without me taking something from them first.

That should be the MO for everyone in this Country. We'd go back to being a polite society if more people grew some stones.

 

[missing linc]

Thief casing your place?
You need to live in the sticks and have 3 BIG dogs!
But such would never happen in the sticks.

I don't live in the sticks, yet, but I do have 3 big dogs. I have had a couple of instances of people coming up my front driveway when I was out there. I assess the situation and act accordingly. My garage is in the back and I usually have the door open whenever I'm working on something. There's not much foot traffic in the alley, and only three or four other neighbors with access to their properties so minimal vehicles passing through. So far in the 12+ years I've been here no one has approached me in the garage.
On January 1, 2025, I was awakened at 6 am by a very slight tapping noise at the back door of my house. When I got to the door I found a man with a hoodie pulled over his face asking me to let him in to warm up. I declined and told him to get the hell off my property, but he persisted for several minutes. I had called the police after about a minute, while continuing to tell him to f off. He finally left, but I could still hear him at a neighbor's house 2 doors away. When I went out to check for damage I could see in the fresh snow where he had climbed over my nearly 7 foot high fence from the back alley, landing on top of a concrete bird bath and knocking it over, before walking back and forth at the back of my house looking for an easy way in.
The neighbor's house directly across the alley has a wide open driveway access leading right to the back door of the house, so if all he wanted was someplace to get warm, why not go there instead of climbing the fence? Clearly he was looking to break in in my opinion. Cops followed up with me a few hours later, he had tried unsuccessfully to steal the neighbor's car but I never heard whether he was arrested. My cameras did not catch a view of his face because of the hoodie and what little I could see of him through the window I could only see he was native and probably late teens.

 

[junkyardhero]

I am normal appearing,

*citation needed*

 

[Demonx2]

I'll add that I've had people stop and even back up and pull in my driveway when I'm out in my shop. I normally have 1 door open and often have 2 doors open (the 2 smaller 10x10 doors) when I'm out there working. Keep in mind my shop is to the right of and behind my house. So you have to pull in then go around the house garage to get to it. We live in a semi-rural area where all the lots are 1+ acres (1 to 5 acres or more).

Like @Kern Dog , I'm normally a trusting person. But when strangers pull in, get out, and want to see my car(s) and can then see what's in my shop, I can get quite defensive and typically say I was just leaving and put the doors down. It's a shame because I have met some decent people but in today's times I feel I have to be cautious.

 

[Dartsun]

What part of Oregon are you at? When I lived in Eugene I've had people come knock on my door at 10pm and ask me for cans and bottles. Get that **** outta here.

 

[RustyRatRod]

I admit I was wrong.

That right there was all you needed to say.

 

[RustyRatRod]

*citation needed*

Citation or correction? Both?

 

[Princess Valiant]

So the moral of the story is: if you had a slant 6 in it you wouldn't be wrenching it. You'd be sitting in the rocking chair on the porch relaxing.

I like the way you think

 

[missing linc]

Wife reminded me of another weird incident from 2025. She opened the door to let the dogs out into the back yard one afternoon when the youngest one started barking and growling at a strange woman who had let herself into the yard and was changing her clothes. This was around 2 pm on a weekday while I was at work. My wife immediately confronted the woman and demanded to know what the hell she was doing in our yard. Woman claimed she was waiting for her mother to come and pick her up, and was being followed by 2 men, (they were security personnel from the mall across the street we later learned she had been shoplifting from).
Wife got her out of the yard and onto the front driveway where the confrontation continued for another couple of minutes before the woman ran off. I've since added a second latch on the lower section of the front gate that can't be reached from the outside. Our entire back yard is fully fenced with only a small hidden gate at the back that is only used to take the garbage bin in or out.

 

[T2R9]

There's a reason I have two Dobermans, keeps the idiots at bay.