The other morning, I was at the cash register at Starbucks, when this raging man with tons of layers of raggedy clothes hanging from him came up to the cashier and demanded tea.
One of the employees told him that he couldn’t skip the line like that. Also, they wouldn’t be serving him anyway because they caught him trying to steal the previous day.
Then, the man started screaming at the employees. He’s pounding on the desk, literally throwing change at them.
At this point, he very dramatically (at least from my perspective) reaches into his shoe. I am right next to him. I don’t know what’s in there. This is downtown L.A., so to have the assumption that it could be a gun is not crazily off base.
Luckily, it was just more change. But it was a sort of scary moment. (This guy was really intense and not really living in our world around him.) Had that been a gun, I would’ve had nowhere to go!
I just want to state for the record here in writing, should I ever get shot anywhere in some story that starts like that, please, please don’t let anyone say, “If only she’d had a gun.”
‘Cause I’m telling you, that is not the answer! I’m glad no one around me had guns, or that overly energetic guy may have been the one that ended up with it.
I really believe that if all civilians are armed with guns, it’s just gonna end with more people getting shot.
I don’t plan on being shot anytime in the near future (or hopefully ever, really). But if ever I am, please oh please if anyone says “if only she’d had a gun,” point back to this blog post and say, “she disagrees with you!”
Thanks for watching out for me, blog readers.