Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Life is composed of accidental moments. They are glimpses of who we are and where we live.

A man came walking out of a post office in Fairfax County the other day and discovered that a tire on his car had gone flatter than a beer the morning after the party.

He was pondering what to do about it when a fellow walked up and offered to help.

Once the dirty chore of changing the tire was done, the 54-year-old driver handed over a few bucks to say thanks. It seemed only fair.

The next afternoon -- that would be Friday -- another man walked out of the same post office (the one on North Kings Highway) to find that he had the same problem: a flat tire.

Lo and behold, a fellow ambled along and said he'd be happy to lend a hand.

When the spare tire was firmly in place, the driver, a grateful 75-year-old, rewarded the helping hand with a few dollars.

Funny thing: Even as that tire was being changed, another car in the post office lot -- a 1998 Buick LeSabre that belonged to an 86-year-old man -- was sporting a flat tire.

What are the chances of that? Three flats, three drivers all in the middle-aged-to-elderly range, same parking lot, within two days?

Just about then, Fairfax County police were asking themselves the very same question.

They had received a call from the first car owner because the tire repair people told him his tire hadn't been nicked by a chunk of glass or a nail. It had been slashed. And then they had heard from another person who saw someone poking something sharp into tires on two cars in the lot.

The police decided that the person best able to solve their mystery just might be Richard Bishop. No trouble finding him, mind you. He was just hanging around the post office when they pulled up Friday.

After a bit of "how do you do," police charged Bishop with three counts of destruction of property.

Police said this case of the good Samaritan gone bad, a variation of the wolf in sheep's clothing, was something new in the annals of scam artistry in Fairfax.

"I've never heard of such a thing," Officer Rich Henry said.

Police said Bishop, who is 53 and lives on 15th Street NW in the District, wasn't exactly making out like, well, a bandit.

Henry opined that he "picked victims based on their vulnerability." The older you get, the more daunting tire-changing becomes. But the AARP set generally isn't able to lay down large tips to folks who wield their tire irons.

No, "we're not talking about large sums of money," Henry said.

-- Tom Jackman, staff writer