Imagine sitting in your apartment on a Sunday enjoying some coffee, watching the latest news on CNN, taking a look out your window to the street below to see someone not just looking at your car which is legally parked on the street, but looking inside your legally parked car. Take it a step further, and imagine seeing those same people taking pictures of the interior of your car, close up and personal. Imagine these people being so obvious about it that your neighbor comes over from across the street too tell you about it, confirming just what it is that you yourself had just witnessed, verifying that the actions of the people guilty of this invasion into my space was seen as more than odd by someone else living here on Main Street.
Would you consider such actions on the part of someone you knew harassment?
Would you consider such actions on the part of someone you knew as stalking?
Would such an invasion into your personal space be upsetting to you?
Wish that this were a hypothetical scenario, or perhaps the storyline for a short story, but this actually occurred today here in our small hamlet of Mountaindale. What were these people doing snooping around my car, why were they taking a close intimate look inside my vehicle, spying/snooping into the contents contained therein? Why were they photographing the interior of my car? It may sound funny, but finding myself looking at what has occurred cannot help but feel violated, the perpetrators invading my personal space and my property.
Inquiring minds want to know...what kind of people think they have the right to just snoop/spy on the citizens of our town, what kind of people think they have the right to peer into the interior of peoples cars, to take photographs of the contents therein as if they are casing the vehicle for some far more sinister reason or purpose? Do I have to worry that my car is going to be broken into? Do the people guilty of this invasion have some desire to wish me bodily harm, or perhaps intend on sabotaging my vehicle in the hopes of causing me to have an accident?
Yes, I know...a bit melodramatic, but done so to make a point. Unless someone is involved in criminal activities, unless someone is under surveillance by a member of law enforcement, they should be able to park their car/truck on the public street here in Mountaindale without fearing that some social deviant is going to be out there taking close up photographs of the interior personal effects in said vehicle. Such an act is far more than just an invasion of privacy, it is a violation of my personal space and property that leaves me feeling both vulnerable and unsafe.
To those guilty of this invasion into my personal space, if you want an inventory of the contents of my car, just ask and I will be more than happy to provide it to you.
