This is the kind of stuff that happens to me all the time. This is short, but I swear it is all true.

So I’m driving down to St. Louis last week to visit friends and family, and I stop about 1/4 of the way down because I’m running out of gas. I generally find that I have to fill up at least once on the way down, but where I stop depends on how much gas I start with, etc.

Anyway, Friday I stopped about 1/4 of the way down. The gas station (Shell, 2.99, fyi) was nice– big parking lot, large well lit interior. I filled up, went inside and hit the head, then picked up a soda and some chips to stay awake. I say stay awake, but this is only about 9:30 Friday night.

I head back out to my Explorer, which I call Air Force One (you know, because I’m the president). As I’m getting in, this guy in a beat up red truck revs into the parking lot from the road, and stops just across the pump from me, facing the opposite direction so he’s looking out of his drivers’ side window facing me.

He’s hispanic looking, though he doesn’t have an accent. He’s got another guy in the passenger seat, skinny white guy with red hair. The white guy may have been stoned, but that is simply my opinion, not actual fact.

“Hey,” he says to me. I stop climbing into my door, and turn around.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“You got a home theater system?” I do in fact have a home theater system, a nice one, bought for an employee discount during my retail electronics days. I debated telling this guy about it, then debated if I’d heard him say what I thought he said.

“Sorry?” I asked, incredulous.

“Home theater system,” he clarified, gesturing. “TV, speakers, tuner. Got one?”

Shady. I decided no. “No thanks.”

“You want one? Free home theater system.”

I looked in the back of the truck and saw nothing but shadows– for all I know there could really have been a home theater system back there, complete with a 45 inch LCD HDTV. “No, no thanks, bud.”

He shrugged, drove off right out of the parking lot. I got back in the car, wondered what that was all about, put my soda in the cupholder, and kept driving down to St. Louis.