Drive by Shooting

Not Recently thank goodness!

No this was back in the fuzzy dawn of prehistory.

Probably about the time Tam's Bikini Pic was taken.

My parents were watching either the second or third episode of

Homicide, Life on the Streets.

I was already bored to tears, and was contemplating running out,

and downing a beer or six. I was staring out the window at a world

dark, indistinct, but way more interesting than a box on the wall

depicting 31 flavors of personal angst.

When what to my terminally bored gaze should appear.

But a love lorn Bubba, whacked from too much beer.

Beside the waitress' truck next door, he stopped with a clang. (not really)

And fired a pistol, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang. (yes! Really!)

I'll print this out and try to give the whole story the Clement Moore treatment.

but for now, I sprang out the door -unarmed- with a herking big flashlight! I've been told I have guts where brains should be. The perpetrator drove his station wagon down the street and fired a couple shots into the air as he turned the corner. After a few minutes a bunch of neighbors came out including the waitress who staying at our neighbors' house. She was so upset that someone would discharge a pistol into her truck that she immediately relapsed into her former two pack a day habit. It took almost three hours for the police to show up. In Spokane, when seconds count, the police are three hours away. To add insult to injury, we had found the discharged cases, carefully used a stick to pick them up and deposit them in a zip lock bag so they wouldn't be run over by traffic. The officer accepted them, poured them into his pocket, and stood playing pocket pool with them, obliterating any chance of fingerprint evidence, whilst he listened to our statements, making no efforts to note times, descriptions of the car, or even the direction the assailant departed.

This was the first time I gave serious thought to obtaining my Concealed Permit. Though it would be fifteen years later that I did, and a year beyond that that I started carrying.