Sorry I Don't Trust You

1 Sorry but I don't trust you. Nothing personal. What's at work here is bigger than both of us. It's called reality. You see them on TV all the time, neighbors shocked by the news that the young man with the big smile, who drove your daughter to the emergency room, who drove you to work when your car didn't start, turns out to be what? a pedophile rapist murderer assassin for the mob but he couldn't have chopped up his girlfriend, that sweet thing? and put her parts in the freezer in the garage he gave the kids ice cream from that freezer this can't be But it is. Did I mention I don't trust you? 2 I am old enough to remember when everyone trusted everyone. You didn't have to lock your doors in Milford, New Jersey. You kept the car idling while you ran into the post office. Even in the 1960s, hiking in the San Gabriel mountains north of L.A., you could find a furnished unlocked cabin with a note on the table: "Please clean up after yourself and leave a contribution for the food you eat. Thank you." As late as the 1980s in Elgin, Oregon, I visited an old friend and found nobody home, the house unlocked, expensive belongings everywhere, stereo and TV, art on the walls, all there for the taking, all safe in Elgin. I waited an hour before they got home. I'm old enough to remember a different reality. 3 That was then. This is now. You may be Mother Teresa's clone. You may be the next TV pervert. Sorry, but I don't trust you.