Today was snakebit as far as all trips to the cat house; each one had a train in the way that needed to be detoured around. The train on the last trip after dark meant I had to detour onto the deserted road that is a mile of old industrial businesses, chain link fences around yards of heavy equipment, and at the north end grain elevators on the left and a couple of shuttered warehouses on the right. There is also a rail switching yard at the north end of this stretch of road with a tall hump of a bridge that crosses it, where the street is distinctive for its old brick pavement.

As I approached the base of the bridge a flashlight shone at me from the side of the street and a tall man and medium height woman stepped into the road, waving and shouting to me that someone had shot at them in the area to the right and they needed to get into my car. The woman walked to the passenger door behind me and pounded on the glass. And on about a half-second's reflection I realized they were a couple of con artists, said no, and drove quickly out of there. I looked to the right as I passed the drive they'd come out of and there was no one, nothing but a parked delivery van. When I pulled up at my friend's house about five minutes later I called 911 and described what happened.

An English major dialing 911 should probably offer a pedant alert at the beginning of the call. She said to let her ask questions, so I answered and described the pair and what they did and that I thought they were being deceptive, they may have wanted to steal a car. "And where exactly on South Main did this happen" - right near the bridge over the rail switching yards. The operator was trying to get more granular information and asked about the trestle. "No, it wasn't a trestle, it was a bridge for cars across the rail yard" (there is a railroad trestle at the south end of that stretch of road at the entrance to a traffic circle). It took a couple of back and forths to realize that she didn't understand the difference between the two and I did and my being perfectly clear wasn't helping her. I pulled up the map on my phone as we spoke and gave her the building number.

Three more days of this, but hopefully no more excitement.