Driving to the gym this morning and this Uhaul style small moving truck pulls up next to me. White male, late forties, short cropped hair, slightly overweight. The truck was all yellow but had "DEVL" painted on the side in graffiti style lettering.

Green light and his lane moves a little faster than mind so I think "Is that a business?" and check for the license plate. No license plate. "No license plate? Is that normal?"

He keeps going straight and I merge onto the freeway and it's just bugging me. Do I call 911 just in case? And say what? That I have a weird feeling? I live in a very religious area with very low crime where I'm sure cops are afraid to profile people and here I am asking myself if that's all I'm doing. I try to find a reasonable explanation why a man that age would be driving a truck like that with no plates and no business insignia aside from the letters "DEVL" painted on the side in teenager-vibe graffiti style and I just can't square it.

I get to the gym parking lot but I can't get out of the car I just kept thinking "What if?" I can feel the tug of war going on inside. Do I trust my instincts or explain them away? I look up "DEVL" and "DEVL moving trucks" online and don't see anything. So I think "What's the worst that will happen if I'm wrong and I report this guy? He gets pulled over there's a good explanation for why he doesn't have a plate and everything checks out and he thinks 'Hey, if I don't want to get pulled over maybe I shouldn't drive around in an unlicensed truck with the word "DEVL" on the side?

Eh. So I call. What the hell. The guy should expect this, right? If he wants to have an edgy truck that raises eyebrows, fine. Maybe he's a great guy. Then again, maybe he's a fucking kidnapper/trafficker, I don't know.

I read this book a while back titled "The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals The Protect Us From Violence" by Gavin de Becker. He's supposedly an expert on the protection of public figures and has worked as a security adviser for three separate U.S. Presidents. He says that "Denial is a save now, pay later scheme." Thinking about that is what ultimately made me decide to call.

I don't know. Maybe it was nothing. But I don't feel like that often, and I can usually feel what other people are feeling. If I'm wrong, I maybe have just inconvenienced a perfectly innocent person for a few minutes. And maybe I waited too long to act on my hunch and I just let a serial killer get away. I don't know. Hopefully I did the right thing, and didn't wait too long. If it ever happens again, I don't think I'll hesitate so much.