Last week, on Tuesday, I stopped at the grocery store for some trivial thing or other.

I had parked and was sitting in the car, reading some messages, when I glanced up at the rearview mirror and saw that there was a large white vehicle blocking me in.

I looked to the sideview mirror and saw that it was a white couple, at least in their mid-70s, and he was recording me.

I opened the door and leaned out to ask if they needed help and he started screaming at me, calling me a “fucking bitch” and then saying, “I’m going to kill you.”

I went to get out of the car and he peeled out so fast I couldn’t get his license plate.

The woman in the car had a look on her face such that I would have asked her if she were afraid or needed help, had the circumstances been different.

I went in the store and as I crossed the threshold into relative safety, I realized that I had just been in grave danger, that he might have had a gun.

The security officer was standing nearby, so I walked up to him and told him what I just told you above. His response, “are these people you know?”

No, they are not people I know. People I know don’t call me names and threaten to kill me.

I described them and he said he’d keep a look out for them and then take me to my car when I was done, which he did, going ahead of me and looking inside the car and under it and around it before letting me get in.

Fear is not my default, and it might even be said that I have an abundance of confidence in my personal safety, but I was shaken – I am shaken.

I have literally no idea what brought that on. All I can really think is maybe the Abide sticker on my rear window pissed him off.

I have no idea what to do about this, in the larger sense or the smaller sense. This is the world we live in, I guess.

Be careful out there. It’s a great big world and a million things could happen.