Secret Agent Man

I had a one-sided conversation with a Pittsburgh FBI agent today. See, two Fridays ago when I was at the mall for an eye appointment, I saw an Arab-looking man in the parking lot taking pictures of the building and the surrounding area. I watched him for a while and decided he was suspicious. Call me a racial profiler, but I just didn't like the looks of things. Not many people want souvenir pictures of the outside of Macy's. Feeling a bit unnerved, I came home and told a few people, but didn't really take much action. Now, two weeks later, I still had an unsettled feeling about it because, hey, maybe it's nothing...but if it's something, boy would I feel guilty for not speaking up. I started looking around on the FBI's website for what to do if you see something like that, and it told me that I should call my local FBI's terrorism office. Of course they would force me to make an actual phone call. A handy internet form would just be too easy. So I mustered up some guts and made the call. I expected an operator to tell me to dial one for terrorism tips or something, but all I got was a man answering "Pittsburgh FBI." I told him I wanted to report suspicious activity. I got transferred to another gruff-sounding man who took my information, asked if I got a license plate number (I didn't), and said thanks and goodbye. Afterwards, I felt kind of dumb because I'm sure they get lots of useless tips like that all the time, but I was just trying to do my part to fight the war on "terra." Maybe I wasted 30 seconds of an FBI agent's time, but at least now I've got a clear conscience.