We had an unusual experience on Saturday night and I would like to get some opinions on it.
I will give you some background information and hopefully, I can make it brief.
I'll begin by saying that my husband's parents came to this country right after they married in the late 1940's. Throughout the years they traveled back to their home country in eastern Europe a few times but not a lot. When my husband's father got up in years he wanted to make one trip back. His wife did not want to go back and since he was in his later years it was decided that his daughter would accompany him. They spent a few weeks there and returned. Other than a few conversations about what they did and who they saw not much more was ever mentioned. He passed away about two years after that trip. This was approximately about 12 years ago.
Since my husband wasn't born in his parents native country and didn't really have much to do with his paternal or maternal families he never really felt any attachment to the country. I believe he met his paternal grandmother just once when he was very young.
Most of what he knew about the old country was just told to him and even then it was not really talked about a lot. His parents left there to have a better life here and were very happy to be citizens of this country.
Now to get to our story. On Saturday night I was in the office and my husband was watching TV. Even though we live in a relatively safe neighborhood we always keep our gate locked at night and have an intercom system set up that anyone coming to the gate can push the button and we can both see and talk to them before opening it up.
I heard the intercom button go off and as I got up to see who was there my husband got there first. Why he even answered it, I don't know. It was a young couple that neither of us had ever seen before. Had I gotten there first, I would have ignored it and just pretended we weren't home. After my husband asked them what they wanted, they proceeded to tell him that they were from the same European town as my husband's parents came from and they were just passing through our area on their way to an adjoining state.
Obviously, after that comment, we just couldn't ignore them. My husband went out to the gate to talk to them and I stayed in the house near the alarm system. They both had an accent and even pronounced our last name the way it would have been pronounced in their country. They said they now lived in Canada and were just on vacation. They had a picture of my husband's father and my husband's sister sitting around a table with several people one of which the young man said was his grandmother. I assume this picture was taken on my FIL's last trip there. He said that his grandmother lived next door to my FIL's sister and she had them over for dinner while they were there. My husband said this young man was very cordial and seemed to have information that only someone from this country would know. Given the information and also the picture we believe he was completely telling the truth. He told my husband that he tried to call us a few days earlier but that no one answered. Why he didn't leave a voicemail message I don't know.
Although my husband felt that this couple was truthful he still wasn't comfortable inviting them into our house. He told them that we were in the middle of painting our house and everything was a mess. I forgot to mention that this happened at 8:30 PM. While my husband and I aren't elderly we are many many years apart in age from this young couple. There are just the two of us living in our house and we would be no match for someone intent on doing something criminal.
The final conclusion to this story is my husband spoke to them at the gate and they asked if they could take a picture of him to send back to their grandmother. After about 10 minutes of conversation, they told my husband it was nice meeting him and then they left. I also forgot to mention that both of my husbands' parents are now deceased and his only other relative is his sister who lives across the country from us. We aren't on the best terms with her so contacting her would not be something we would do.
I'm so sorry this post is so long but trying to explain everything is just complicated.
I may be completely wrong but I just feel like this young couple thought that we would offer them a place to spend the night. Taking someone into our home that neither of us knew or ever heard of would not be something I would even consider.
My question to you is how would you have handled this situation? Would you have invited them in and would you have offered to put them up for the night?
I told my husband that this couple probably thought we were rude but not knowing anything about them just made me very cautious.
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