Friday, June 16, 2006

Near death experience

Ok so I know I haven't been around in a while, but I've been off work, and it's really hard to get motivated to write anything when you are on an unstructured schedule, and there's nothing going on in your life.
But something happened to me tonight that was totally chilling. I was walking home from a friend's house rather late and it's through a pretty crappy neighbourhood, but I normally do this, and normally all I get is a bunch of disgusting guys hitting on me, or making kissy noises or whatever. Tonight however was a whole different ballgame, I was walking along a pretty open stretch of sidewalk, no parked cars, straight road, pretty safe, seemingly. Then I noticed a red light on the ground next to me, the first thing I thought was that it was a laser pointer, but as I noticed it a girl was walking past me on a cellphone and she was looking at it too, so I figured it might have been hers. Then after a few more steps I noticed that the laser was still on me, but the girl was quite far off. Then I looked down and realized that it was on my shirt, I looked up and it was coming from an upper floor window of one of the sketchy rooming houses across the street and I started to think sniper. Now, I know that's paranoid, but all of a sudden I felt like I couldn't breathe and I got the heck out of there. It scared the shit out of me. By the time I got home I had knots in my stomach.
I'm sure it was just some little shit with a dollar store laser pointer. My dad had this happen with the neighbour kid a few years ago, and the parents made the kid write a letter of apology. But it also brought to mind a friend I had in high school, who had a father who was, shall we say, controversial, who got really upset when someone pointed one at him at a party. He dove on the ground and started heading for another room. Poor guy almost crapped his pants, I would have too if I'd been in his shoes.
Anyway, I don't want some bullshit speech from anyone about walking alone at night, because I'm just as likely to get shot walking with another person, and I'm not going to travel around with a crowd just so that they'll be more likely to get hit by stray bullets than I will. I just wanted to share the tale of my near death experience. Now I'm sitting safely at my computer, drinking some tea and eating a square of dark chocolate.

12 comments:

Trib said...

I'm sorry to hear that you had this happen. I don't mean to discount anything you've said, the situation sounds like it justified your fear. In case something like this happens in the future, no one actually uses laser sights except on tv. If someone snipes you there won't be any warning, the bullets travel faster than sound.

Jennifer said...

Strangely that's actually very reasuring.

yrautca said...

Scary. Remember back in 2002 or 2003 when there was a sniper in Washington DC? I used to live there at the time. we were all so scared you wont believe it. that sniper hit people who were refueling their cars. So it was scary to go to a gas station. I used to rush out of my door, put the nozzle in the car and would rush back in and lower msyelf so I coudlnt be seen through the windows.

And what were you doing walking alone at night? What? Your BF should escort you to and from places. What is he thinking?

Anonymous said...

sorries!

Princess Pessimism said...

trib stole my comment...I was going to say that if it helps calm your nerves at all, if it were a sniper, there wouldnt be a warning.

Jennifer said...

Well, there's no accounting for the behaviour of the malicious and insane, so I don't think you can apply logic to this. I feel that the intention was to threaten.
It's a sad state of affairs when the best case scenario is that it was just someone wacking off while scaring the shit out of people who are minding their own business.

Miss Ash said...

Was it aimed at your tits? It was probably just some dirty fucker pointing out the 'hottie' to his friends with his laser pointer.

That or he enjoys being annoying and watching peoples reactions when they have no idea where it is coming from.

Tokyo Tintin said...

maybe someone finally took my 'personal sniper' idea to heart and thought you were walking too slow.

Jennifer said...

TT, I assure you that with all the sexual harassment I usually get on that route, I do not dawdle. I don't walk slowly at the best of times, but on that route in the middle of the night, it's more like a running pace that just looks like walking.

Tokyo Tintin said...

well jenni, you were obviously too slow for someone, hence the personal sniper.

Anonymous said...

naw, just wanted to see if you would play with it like a cat. people with cats know what I'm talking about.

Anonymous said...

You should have reported this to police, love. And, while you're at it can you help me figure out which yuppie bugger either fires a gun or firecrackers at sundown most nights in the "toney" hood.
Ahem.