I had plans to meet a few friends at a local bar for dinner and trivia last night, so I did the usual, came home from work, showered, changed, and headed out into the freezing, snow flurried night.  Well I walked a few blocks and crossed the local mini mart and happened to glance through the window to see a man, bundled up in warm clothing, his face covered except for a horizontal strip through which he could see, a ski mask.

Thinking nothing of it, I kept walking.  I walked past a couple of houses and had this peculiar thought that it wasn’t really cold enough for a ski mask, even though people wear them regularly on the street during the colder months, and why wear it indoors anyway?  Plus I figured, if I went back and it wasn’t an actual robbery, I’d buy a pack of gum so that I didn’t seem like a complete idiot.  So I about-faced and headed back.

As I get to the entrance, this sweet Korean lady at the counter and this Masked Man turn their heads and stare at me through the glass door, obviously surprised.  I continue to push the door to enter, at first embarrassingly choosing the wrong side of the door push on.  I walk into the store and this Masked Man comes running toward me with his gun pointed at my chest, all the while shouting… “Get on the f*cking ground!  Get on the f*cking ground!”.

Usually at this point in time I would fully expect, if I was contemplating in a moment of foresight, that I would experience an immense adrenaline rush, the drumming of my heart, and proving Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, living a few years in the span of a few seconds.  Surprisingly, most of all to me in this moment of hindsight, I let out an audible sigh and continued to walk toward a corner of the store as to get further away from the entrance.  My blood still flowed normally and I specifically remember not experiencing the biological fight-or-flight response.  I still have yet to decide if I was tasting a flavor of bravery or brazen stupidity.

I take a few steps toward my destination and the Masked Man rushes past me toward the door, with a literal fistful of dollars in his right hand.  As he reaches the door, the Korean woman at the counter reaches for the phone, noticing that, the Masked Man swings around with his gun pointed at her and with the last words before he sprints down the icy sidewalk he shouts, “Get away from the the f*cking phone!”.  The woman, smartly, complies.

The height of the situation passed, I turn to the counter and ask the woman, “Are you OK?  I can wait here if you want while you call the cops.”  She replies while nodding in her heavy accent, “It’s OK, it was only $50.  Good thing I put the rest in the vault.”  Not believing her casual state, I stayed for a little while longer.  She then smiled and said if she could help me with anything.  I smiled back, asked her if she was OK one more time, and then continued to walk out the store, toward my original destination.

What I walked away from this entire state of affairs?  Hairy spiders scare me more than guns and a good trivia team name is “I Had A Gun Pointed At Me Tonight”.  My only regret?  I should have bought the gum.