I pull into the only remaining parking spot at Shop Rite food store in Glassboro. I can’t believe how crowded it is. And then I remember today is the day that the Gloucester County bus transports the senior citizens to the food store. It’s not that I dislike older people, I ‘m no spring chicken myself.

However, some seniors perceive food shopping as a social event. They gather in groups in the middle of the aisle and gossip about one another. And they have debates about which is better frozen food or canned.

I, on the other hand, detest food shopping. I want to get in and get out. After thirty years of food shopping, it holds no interest for me. It’s a task I must complete every two weeks. I’m not a foodie never have been.

I open the door of my car and sigh. I’m resign myself to the fact that I’m about to squander another hour of my life doing something I don’t want to do. I lock the door on my seventeen-year-old Mitsubishi Galant and walk over the corral where the shopping carts are stored.

As I get closer to the carts, I notice that there’s something in the first cart where mothers put their little kids. And low and behold, someone has left a large purse.

I look around to see if anyone is getting into their cars who might have left it there. Unfortunately, I don’t see anyone getting in or getting out of their cars. I pick up the purse and contemplate what I should do. Should I take it into the food store and leave it with customer service? Should I leave it in the cart in case the owner returns for it? No, someone will probably grab the purse take the money and credit cards and throw the purse in the trash.

Then I get the brilliant idea of looking into the purse for identification, possibly a phone number or address. I find the driver’s license. The owner of the purse lives in Clayton, a town about fifteen minutes away. There’s no phone number. Common sense tells me to take the purse into the store and give it to Customer Service.

But I don’t listen to common sense. I decide I’ll drive to Clayton and return it to the owner. Who may not realize where they left their purse. I get back in my car and turn on my GPS. I decide to take another quick look into the purse. I open it up, and I find an expensive-looking watch and some unopened letters, a gun, and handcuffs. And then I see drugs. Not the kind of pills I have in my purse, aspirin, and anti-acids. But illegal drugs or what I think are probably illegal drugs.

“Holy Mackerel,” I say out loud. I realize at this point I ‘m in over my head. I decide to take the purse and its creepy contents into the store to customer service and turn it in. I feel a bead of sweat dripping slowly down from my forehead off my chin. And more sweat follows.

Just as I’m getting out of my car to turn the purse over to the customer service, I sense someone is looking at me. I look to the right and the left. And I see a woman about thirty-years-old staring at me. The purse is wide open. This woman does not look happy. In fact, she appears as if she’s going to blow a gasket. Her face is distorted by anger, rage even.

I grin at her and shrug my shoulders.  I  see that doesn’t help. My first reaction is, she’s going to kill me. I try to get back in my car. and lock my door. But it’s too late. She’s grabbing the outside door handle and yanks the door open.

“What the hell are you doing with my purse?” She says.

“Oh look, I’m sorry I found it in one of the carts. I was just about to return it to you. I was looking in the purse for a phone number to call and let you know I found it. That’s all. I didn’t see anything.       Here take it.”

“You didn’t see anything? Come on you’re coming with me.”
“No, here take your purse, I’m not going to tell anyone, anything. I’m not going anywhere with you. I have to go food shopping today. Look, you can check your purse.  You won’t find anything missing. I have to go now.”

“You’re not going anywhere. Get in.”

“What? No, I’m not going anywhere with you. Just take the purse. Take it. I scream, “help” at the top of my lungs. It’s too late. That’s when she yanks me by the hair and pulls me over to the back of her car. Opens the trunk and shoves me in and slams the trunk closed. I bang on the trunk and kick it with my feet. And then I start screaming at the top of my lungs. But by then, she’s driving away. And nobody is going to hear me once we get on Delsea Drive, which is a really busy road all the time. I keep screaming, “help, I’m locked in the trunk.”

I begin feeling panicky. I’m sweating from my head down to the soles of my feet. It’s hot as Hades in here. I feel like I’m suffocating. I try screaming again, but only a squeak comes out of my dry throat. I keep thinking about a self-defense class I took years ago. They said, “whatever you do, don’t let anyone take you to a second location.” Or maybe I heard it, Oprah.

And that is when I start to lose it, hyperventilating, feeling like I was going to throw up. I begin kicking the trunk of the car with all my might, try to open it, hoping that it isn’t locked. No matter how hard I kick, it doesn’t budge.

I attempt to calm down and reason. Unfortunately, I’ve never been good under pressure. I always panic. Sometimes if someone asks me my name, I just stare at them blankly. I can’t remember my name at that moment. God forbid I get pulled over by a cop for speeding on making an illegal turn. My brain stops working altogether. I had test anxiety all through school even college. And now, my life depends on me getting my shit together. For all, I know, this woman is some sort of maniac or cold-blooded murderer. This could be my last day alive. I start praying; I’m not religious. But it might be worth a shot. “Help me, god, help me. I’ll be a better person. I won’t lose my temper so easily. I’ll start recycling. I’ll never tell another lie, ever. I’ll try to be more patient. Anything you want, god, just help me get out of this trunk and away from this murderer.”

I slow down my breathing, taking deep breaths, and slowly exhaling. I calm down a bit, and then the thought crosses my mind that maybe I’ll run out of air in the trunk and suffocate. I start feeling claustrophobic. I start yelling and kicking again, “help, I’m locked in the trunk, help, help, help.”

Suddenly, my brain kicks in a last-ditch effort to save my life. I remember that newer vehicles have an emergency release on the inside of the trunk. I’m on my side. I start feeling along the inside of the hood to the middle feeling for the release. It should be a small handle that I have to grab and then pull, and the hood should pop open after about two minutes, which feels like an eternity. I find the cable and follow it to the latch. I decide to wait until the car slows.

I’m sweating like a pig at this point, exhausted from the shock and terror I’m feeling. I don’t believe I’ve ever been so frightened in my life. I decide to start counting backward from a hundred to calm myself down. I’m on thirty-four when I feel the car slow down and comes to a halt. I pray we are at a light and not at this woman’s home. I pop the hood. I hear the engine is still running, I throw my legs over the top of the trunk and then with great effort push my upper body up and out.

I’m standing on the highway. A young woman driving a car directly in front of me is texting someone on her phone and doesn’t even see me. I run over to her car and start pounding on the driver’s side window. She slowly turns her head in my direction. I’m yelling as loud as I can, “help, help, help.”  Which isn’t loud because my throat is sore from yelling at the top of my voice for whatever amount of time I have been locked in the trunk. I have lost all sense of time.

She opens her window half-way down. “Please let me in, the woman in the car behind you kidnapped me. She has a gun, please, I need help, let me in. She glances at the car trunk directly behind her. The kidnapper is now aware that her unwilling passenger has escaped from the trunk. Until she see s her talking to the driver in the car in front of her.

“Please, here comes the kidnapper, please, please let me in.”

“OK, get in. You can use my phone to call the police.”

“Please lock your doors; maybe you should start beeping your car horn to call attention to what’s happening.”

The driver of the car looks in her rearview window and sees an armed woman running towards her car. “Crap, here she comes, she has a gun in her hand. We have to get out of here quickly. The driver starts beeping her car until everyone is looking in their direction.

The other driver’s make room for the woman to pull her car out. She starts weaving in and out of the traffic. And then there is traffic starts moving forward.

The woman driving my getaway car keeps saying out loud,” My God, what have I got myself into?” She says it about five times. I put my hand on her shoulder in an attempt to reassure her. She practically jumps through the roof of the car. “What the hell are you doing? Why are you touching me?’

“I’m sorry I was just trying to calm you down. Thank you so much for saving my life; only one in a million people would have done that. I was so lucky you were behind the getaway car.”

“Getaway car, what do you mean, did you rob a bank or something? Are you a bank robber?” Then she starts saying my god, my god, my god, what did I get myself into?”

“What? No, I’m not a bank robber. I was in the Shop Rite parking lot to do my food shopping. And I found a woman’s purse in the baby seat of the shopping cart. I was looking into the purse to find a name and address so I could contact the owner or return it. Then I decided it would be better to turn it into the Customer Service of Shop Rite. And I was just about to do that when the owner showed up.  Unfortunately for me because when I looked in her purse, I found a loaded gun, and drugs and a large sum of money, expensive jewelry, and handcuffs.”

“So anyway, she sees me looking in her purse. She comes barreling over to me, and if looks could kill, I would already be dead. She was in a rage. I tried to explain to her what happened. She wouldn’t listen. She grabbed me and dragged me over to her car and threw me in the trunk. And then she drove away. I know she was going to kill me. Why else would she throw me in the trunk? I remembered that newer cars have a trunk release. And I managed to open the trunk and climb out. And that’s where you came to the rescue. I owe you a debt of gratitude; you absolutely saved my life.”

Just as I finished recounting my experience to my savior, I hear a police siren and turn and look in the back window, and I see two cop cars following us. “Oh, thank god, the police are here? You should pull over.”

“Call the police? No, I didn’t have time to do anything. Someone else must have called the police when they say you get out of the trunk and get into my car.”

“Mam, can I see your driver’s license, please, and insurance card?”

“What, I didn’t do anything I was trying to save this woman’s life. She was locked in the trunk of the car in front of me, and she managed to escape. I was driving her to safety.”

I realize that mam, but I still have to see some identification. You too mam.”

“Me, I don’t even remember what happened to my purse, it might still be in my car at the ShopRite Food store in Glassboro where I was kidnapped. It is a black 2003 Mitsubishi Galant.”

“Alright man, I’ll have that checked out. Are either of you injured?”

“No, thank god. But that maniac threw me in the trunk. She had a gun. She was going to kill me because I found her purse and looked in it. She had a loaded gun, handcuffs and drugs, and a lot of money.”

“Alright, I understand, unfortunately, both of you are going to have to go make a statement at the police headquarters. The two of you can get in my vehicle, and I’ll have my partner drive your car to the station, miss.”

I look at her, and she looks back at me. I say,” I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.” So, I start laughing and crying at the same time. We hug each other.

“Oh, by the way, my name is Sandra. Sandra Gioiella. What’s your name?

“I’m Mary Guilfoyle. It’s been an interesting day. I don’t usually drink, but after this, I would really appreciate a beer, how about you?”

“That’s a date, lunch, too, on me.”

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