don't you point your guns at me, i'm a good guy

So I had a bit of an interesting evening a couple of nights ago. I had gone out to a Wal-Greens I don't normally use to pick up a Redbox DVD and was standing in line to do so. As always, the person in front of me was taking forever {what is up with that? seriously? I'm always in and out in one minute!} and so I was just standing there waiting. Other customers were coming in and out, making purchases, whatever, I wasn't really paying attention.

After a couple of minutes, I overheard the cashier (who was about 10 feet from me in the checkout stand) say quietly into an inhouse phone "Can you please come up here, I've just been robbed!"

At first I could barely believe what I heard, then I figured I'd better double check and see if she was all right.

Sure enough, she was looking very distraught and so I repeated to her, "Did you just say you'd been robbed?!" She nodded, but didn't want to say anything until her manager joined her, which she did, seconds later, and then the poor thing broke down sobbing.

"He pointed a gun at me and everything!"

Holy cow!

By now, people were starting to gather as this was making quite a scene (understandably) and I passed along what I had learned. I couldn't believe that this had all gone on about 10 feet from me without my even knowing! I mean I'd seen the guy and everything, but evidently he did everything very smoothly as to not cause attention!

Well one of the other customers who had just come in mentioned that he'd seen a guy run off towards a Bar & Grill just down the street, and so collectively we agreed that that must have been the guy. That particular Bar & Grill is just west of where Danny works, so I called him to let him know what was going on, that I was 'sort of' a witness to a robbery, and that he should be on the look out for a guy on the run.

A couple of minutes went by and so I got back into line to get my movie. Within 3-5 more minutes my turn came, I got my stuff and left the store--only to be staring into the guns of 3 policeman crouched behind a patrol car as they were evidently looking for the perpetrator.

"Move to the side! Move to the side!" they gestured, and I wide-eyed and obediently took a few paces to the right--kind of non-chalantly because I knew that they weren't going to catch the guy in the store and there was going to be no shooting--I guess they hadn't realized the robbery had occured at least 10 minutes ago and the guy had already left. So another customer mentioned this to them and they broke formation, one of them coming over to me to get a quick story (but not an official statement, I was not on the police report as I found out later, in fact, none of us customers were!) and then they told me I could go to my car.

I had to call Dan again to quickly inform him about this latest adrenaline pumper! I'm so grateful that I had not had the kids with me when all this happened, not only for the obvious safety sake, but also due to the fact that Sean would have freaked out. It's funny, I guess I'm so naive about stuff like that...ya think you're safe, that your town is safe, that most people are good--and I maintain that they are--but there are those scumbags out there who get desparate during hard times and make poor choices.

It didn't really hit me until last night when the movie was due back that I guess it was kind of a dangerous situation. I looked at the clock at 8:30 (which is about when the incident occured Monday night) and the last thing I wanted to do was go back out to a Wal-Greens at night. Perhaps this will teach me to be a bit more cautious, aware, and careful. And I said a little prayer of thankfulness that they guy hadn't been a raging lunatic and gone on a shooting spree while he was at his 'grand-theft-at-the-wal-greens' escapade. My thoughts are with the poor twenty-something cashier who was just doing her job yet was faced with what must have been one of the scariest moments in her life.

As per the police report, the guy was not apprehended that night. He is still at large.