Thieves!!!

It wasn't too many years ago that I went inside a corner gas station to pay for my gas (this was before I believed in owning a credit card) and as I wrote out my check, the man behind the counter told me I had "an innocent face". It puzzled me, somewhat embarrassed me in front of the line of other customers, and I gave him a blank look. He insisted it was a compliment, and tried to explain I looked like a good, honest person. Nobody had ever told me that before and it came as a surprise to hear such a thing. I did thank the man and hurried on my way. It's nice to know that by our actions and countenance, hopefully people notice something different in us. This story came to mind the past few weeks over a recent incident.

I had never felt so upset, distraught, disturbed, anxious, nervous in my life. And for what?! I had done nothing wrong! I was bothered for hours afterwards before finally feeling somewhat settled, then peace, then laughter over the entire ordeal.

Over Labor Day weekend, Conor and I traveled down to Harlingen, TX. It was 5 1/2 hours from Houston, and near the border of Mexico. We went there to shoot a wedding and booked the event exactly a year earlier. Due to recent events, many border towns are no longer safe, so going into Mexico was definitely out of the question. I decided to make a weekend of it, then we could get settled in, see the area, check out the venues for the wedding, and have plenty of time to travel there and back. We arrived Friday evening and I checked in with our bride so she knew we had arrived. She asked if we could drive to her house the next day, so we knew where to go (she was getting ready there and wanted photos). We told her we would do that, and then also check out the church and reception.

The next day we slept in, then prepared for a day at the beach on South Padre Island, and headed out to find the bride's house and other venues. I drove, since I would be the one going to her house, and wanted to make sure I remembered it all. Our gps was stolen a couple months ago (I'll post about that another time.), so we looked up the addresses and wrote notes to get around. We arrived in the neighborhood, drove slowly past the houses, looking for the addresses, found it, went around the corner, turned around, and headed back out. We proceeded to the church, then onto the reception place in Brownsville. By this time we've travelled more than 20 miles from the bride's house. Due to construction we were on the feeder road and pulled up to a stop light. A car pulled up rather closely beside us and motioned for us to put our windows down. We thought they needed directions. A lady reached across her husband, taking photos of us with her pink camera phone. Did we really look that much like tourists?! That thought was cut short with screaming, ranting and raving. I looked more closely at the couple and recognized him as a man watering his bushes outside a neighboring house to the bride's family. We were accused of being at their house earlier and stealing from them, breaking into their vehicle. Then coming back to finish the job. I was trying to explain myself, and who we were, what we were doing there, Conor's telling them to call the cops, and my head is spinning all the while. Totally insane!!! Finally I told them we were there for Stephanie's wedding and the guy went silent, she kept going and informed us we don't belong in their neighborhood. The light changed--finally!!!!--and they went right, we went straight. I was in shock over all of this happening.

Not wanting to bother and upset the bride, I figured I would address the issue the following day when I arrived. It turns out the neighbors are actually really good friends with her parents and were attending the wedding. Sweet! LOL! The man realized they had wrongfully accused us, and went over that night to let them know what they had done and apologized and was rather embarrassed. The dad thought it was hilarious and told me they had all locked their car doors before I arrived to shoot. lol. Then the mom had us sit together during the wedding dinner to become better acquainted. Rather nice people, with a misfortunate mistake. After stepping back, I can see we looked suspicious, driving around slow, female driver, Conor & I had dark shades on, he  had a ball cap, unshaven face--we both didn't look our best. Too funny!!! Definitely a wedding to remember! I love my job!!!!

Here's our mug shots. Oh, and our Starbucks gift cards the nice couple gave us, along with an apology card. We are forgiving souls, so there were no hard feelings, just a memorable story!