Just a good (true) story

It was a hot August day in a suburb of Columbus. I was assigned to do work on a municipal building. They had Brick walkways leading up to the entry way of the building. My task was to remove all the cement mortar between the bricks and then replace it. OBVIOUSLY (to me) then no one could walk on it while i did it.
So there was a front and back door to get into the place, so it became obvious to me that i needed to make sure that everyone entered and exited through the entryway that i was not working on.
This is about the time that i went inside the building to ask the front desk lady person in the lobby there if i could lock the doors from the inside. She said no, so i went outside to ponder more. It was not long before two cop cars tore into the parking lot and the police jumped out of the vehicles and surrounded me.
"get your hands out of you pockets now!!" they yelled.
"ummmmm, ok. is there somethings wrong officers?"
At this point they did not respond to my question, but started a long interrogation session about the purpose of my presence at the building. They did not believe me. They searched my vehicle, frisked me, you know, the whole shabang. After a while they conceded that i, in fact, was not a terrorist. wait what???
As it turns out, apparently the front desk lady person in the lobby decided that due to my scruffy beard and shabby clothes, there was a high probablity that i was a terrorist rather than a mason, and therefore notified the authorities, promptly. It later made for a good laugh, and simply added to the list of run ins with the authorities to my list. None of which, by the way, have been for anything other than misjudgments and misunderstandings.