After finishing dinner Friday night, we're standing in the restaurant parking lot telling our friends goodnight. Krakatollah wants to walk across the street to the convenience store and see if they have ice. (We've been without power since Ike.) Just as we're wrapping up the evening we watch a Bellaire police car with lights on pull up on the side of the store, officer gets out, draws his sidearm and proceeds very cautiously toward the door of the store. I immediately told my wife and friends we need to take take cover in front of my car, since it's a straight line from the door of the store past the officer to us.
My wife quickly responds to her training by looking at me and saying, "Huh?" Our friends look at me as if I'm playing some game.
Within seconds, four more police cars pull up so now the members of my dinner party are paying attention. I repeat to my wife to join me on the other side of my engine block. She says, "I'll just get into the car and we can go," and proceeds to hop into the front seat and look at me as if I'm playing some kind of game.
Our friends casually saunter over to their car.
Realizing that my wife isn't going to listen to me
(there's a new one for you married guys, can you imagine that?), I decide the best course is to as quickly as possible get my wife away from a potential line of fire. I choose not to drive in front of the store and instead scoot on down the street away from the back of the store. In the rearview, I see a police car with flashing lights coming our way so I pull to the side. Our friends, still oblivious, pull up next to me as if I'm pulling over to chat.
"Don't you see the police car behind you?" "What car?" At which point the police car pulls up next to us and illuminates us with his spot. He goes on to start searching the next block, two more police cars come by, each pausing to check us out with their spotlights and then they too start searching the next block. As we never saw anyone leave the front of the store, the BG must have gone out the back.
I decide that I'm not going to drive forward into the dark streets and possibly encounter a very desperate person who is looking to hitch a ride, so I do a U-turn and get out of that neighborhood. My wife thinks I was over reacting,
I think I didn't particularly care to watch a potential shoot-out. The officer had his weapon out for a reason.
I was carrying a P239 with an extra mag, but I'm very glad that we didn't walk in on that robbery. Just a few minutes made that difference. (I could be mistaken, the women may have wanted to stand and chat in the parking lot for another half hour, who knows?) I've given some thought how I would react if ever caught in something like that, glad I didn't have to take the test this time. Where I have absolutely no doubt about what to do is if a robber starts marching us toward the cooler in the back of the store, that simply won't be allowed.
My wife quickly responds to her training by looking at me and saying, "Huh?" Our friends look at me as if I'm playing some game.
Realizing that my wife isn't going to listen to me
I decide that I'm not going to drive forward into the dark streets and possibly encounter a very desperate person who is looking to hitch a ride, so I do a U-turn and get out of that neighborhood. My wife thinks I was over reacting,
I was carrying a P239 with an extra mag, but I'm very glad that we didn't walk in on that robbery. Just a few minutes made that difference. (I could be mistaken, the women may have wanted to stand and chat in the parking lot for another half hour, who knows?) I've given some thought how I would react if ever caught in something like that, glad I didn't have to take the test this time. Where I have absolutely no doubt about what to do is if a robber starts marching us toward the cooler in the back of the store, that simply won't be allowed.