The Thousand Yard Stare

Arrggh.

I may have made a critical mistake and burned some financial documents that I needed for the estate. It’s not enough that emotionally I’m having to forge through this stuff, but then to have done something pretty stupid like that?

*sigh*

So, instead, I’m stalling again and updating my wordpress.

I’ll tell a little story about how one time I was robbed at gunpoint. (This is not the funny story that I previously mentioned).

This was probably 1995, when I was working at Kay Bee Toys at Westwood Mall in Houston…..when it was still a mall (barely).

Finally, I had gotten around to getting Monica (not my friend Monica – she worked at the toy store with me) to go out on kind of a proper “date”. Monica (#2) is the daughter of my surrogate mother Chris who took care of me at the poolhalls from 1990 onward. Yes, I semi-dated the bartender’s daughter. Such a stud.

Anyway – it was about 4:30pm or 5:00pm and if I recall (daylight), Monica had been grounded for something, and wasn’t supposed to be out. I picked her up in the Olds station wagon (such a cool dude was I). I don’t recall having a plan of where to go – either go eat or something, but I needed cash. It’s still daylight – so we stop at the ATM at Hillcroft and Beechnut. This ATM is no longer there, the bank turned into a wing joint. So, I think I got out $60 bucks – although it might have been $200. I don’t remember.
So, I’m getting back into my car and doing the “lean” where you’re putting your wallet back into your pocket, and I’m looking at Monica. All of a sudden I feel something on the back of my head. I hear the words, “Give me everything”. I move very slowly and I’m looking at this black dude who’s got a gun digging into the back of my head. I freeze and just drop my keys in my lap. He calmly says, “Pick them up, and give them to me”. I give him my keys, my wallet and the cash I had pulled out. He calmly leaves along with two of his buddies that were keeping lookout.

Kind of freaking out, and not being able to drive anywhere, we get out of the car. Slowly.

There’s a white dude at the ATM pulling out cash – who had been doing that the entire time not even noticing that we were being robbed. I say, “We were robbed!” He looks a little surprised, but kind of shrugs his shoulders. I was a little irritated, but what the hell did I expect him to do?

So we went to the Little Ceasers pizza at the end of the strip (Ty will know which one I’m talking about) and called the cops. The cops pick us up, take us up to my regular poolhall which is right up the street and drop us off. Monica gets picked up, and Brian picked me up. He was hungry, so we go right back to the same ATM (where my car is sitting) and he gets out cash. Man we were stupid.

Chris was SUPER pissed. She still brings it up sometimes when I see her. I did kind of date Monica off and on from then, but it never really went anywhere.

Monica (#1) might remember me having to get all the locks changed at the Toy Store since all my keys were stolen.

The cops did come by the Toy Store and showed me some pictures, but the guy that actually held the gun to my head was not in the pictures.

So that’s that story.

After I tell the story, and people usually say something like, “Wow, that’s crazy”. I have to remind myself that I was EXTREMELY lucky that the guy was calm. If he had been a jittery crackhead, I probably would have been shot – dead. All these stories about “invincible” teenagers makes me think of that day.

Just because it makes me feel better, Lucy always jumps into my lap when I’m on the computer: