Moral: Don't leave your keys on your desk. Like, ever.

I’ve had  a few people ask me about the details of what my coworkers and I experience last week at the police standoff at Walmart.  Even as I type this it sounds like the subject of a  young adult novel.  And not a good one. 

 

Anyway, it was shortly after 11:00 am on Friday, 4/24/15.  I was sitting at my desk in the tiny office in John Deere Landscapes supply, and so was my boss.  Our desks face each other, because that is the only configuration that will fit two desks in this office.  We heard a poppoppop.  I looked up at him and said, “gunshots?”  He gave me a worried look and nodded his head.  He hates guns.  I, like a moron, popped my head up to look out the window.  We have a yard debris recycling place next door, and sometimes the tractor makes weird noises as it runs over branches, etc.   But no one was out there.   So I ventured out to the front counter area where Kenny, one of the salesmen was slightly ducked down. 

“You hear that?” I said

“Oh yeah, that’s why I’m down here.  I think James went running out there to see what’s going on”

 

Sure enough, there were a couple of cops out there, and sirens indicating many more were on the way.  I saw my coworker James, (a part time volunteer fireman and gun enthusiast) standing behind the steel dumpster watching.  By this time, my boss was out there and so was a visiting factory rep and we could see that the commotion was centered around a big junky bus painted a flat baby blue.  It was parked in the next door Walmart parking lot which sat about 50 feet beyond our dumpster, which was up against a chain link fence.  Then I saw a cop come running down the adjacent street, pulling out his handgun.  That’s when I realized the situation was not yet contained and decided to go back in to avoid getting caught in crossfire, which seemed like a likely possibility at that point.  I went upstairs and took pictures out the window and a couple short videos of 4 cops crouching behind a car on the street directly between our dumpster and the funky blue bus.  I tweeted them out, and said “police standoff in progress”  Just so word got out.   A SWAT officer ran through our pipe yard with a rifle and made the guys leave the dumpster area.  Then he told my boss we need to evacuate.  We asked him where and he just pointed to the recycling place next door.  So I grabbed my purse and we all ran, ducking down, through the parking lot.  About mid way across I realized my keys were on my desk and not in my purse.  We ran around the abandoned house next door and it began to rain.  Cops were everyone, and one kept driving by in an SUV yelling at us to get inside, but the job trailer for the recycling place was locked and no one was in there.  Then the guy (it’s pretty much a one man operation) showed up and we all went into the job trailer. 

We sat/stood around for about an hour, a couple of us tweeting what was going on, and news stations started tweeting me to ask permission to use my pictures, which I granted.  Then one of them asked me to call in and describe what I was seeing, and they broadcast that live for a couple of minutes.  Finally after about an hour and a half, a female officer came in and said, “I don’t really like you guys being here, it’s still in the line of fire.”

We pointed out that we had no place safe to go.  She told us if we had keys we could leave.  Kenny had his keys, so he left.  James had keys but wanted to watch what was going on, so he stayed with the rest of us who didn’t have keys.  I told her that if she gave us 4 minutes to go back into our building and get our keys, we’d lock it up and be out of there.  Sounded like a plan, so we all started heading back to our place.  The recycling guy locked up the job trailer and split.  We had gotten about 20 feet when she stopped us and said, “uh oh, get back inside!”  Well, we couldn’t, because the dude took off after having locked the trailer.  Now it was starting to pour down rain.  “I thought we had a window of time” she said, “but now he’s talking about blowing himself up.  So it’s not safe.  He’s not leaving that parking lot, you understand, unless it’s in the back of a squad car.  But he’s not giving up”

So we were standing out in the rain, James checked the abandoned house and it was still unlocked, so we went in there.  We stood in there for about 4 hours alternately pacing and watching out the window (directly in the line of fire)  I got a phone call from a friend who knew I worked over there, and she lived less than a mile away.   I pondered the origin of various piles of feces in the house, and tried to stand back from all the windows as they had about a foot of cobweb standing out from most of them.  There was no furniture in any of the rooms, except the back room, where they had used them to prop pieces of wood for sawing.  Sawdust covered every surface in there.  We heard more gunfire periodically, and watched the cops launch canisters of tear gas, which didn’t seem to have much effect. 

Finally about 3:15 or so, Terry, one of the salesmen got tired of standing around and decided he was going to sneak back to the office and grab his keys.  He asked for the location of my keys and my boss’ keys.  He and James went over there.  Terry came back with all the keys.  James stayed in there a few minutes, used the restroom, probably made a sandwich, and finally came back to the house.  Then we all left for home, having to take an alternate route since the road we all usually take was blocked.  But we made it.  I went home and had some popcorn and a rum and coke and watched the news.  They finally brought in a SWAT vehicle called a ripper, kind of an armored truck with forks on the front.  They began ripping the side off the bus so they could see where the guy was inside.  After taking nine shots, he kind of rolled out of the bus, which looked like it was filled with debris. They took him to the hospital where he later died. 

For those of you who didn’t hear any of this story before, they tried to apprehend this guy in the Walmart parking lot because they had a warrant for drug distribution for him.  He ran into his bus and fired on the cops, hitting a police dog.  The dog is fine.  Is it weird that I cared more about what happened to the dog than anyone else in this story?  And I’m going to keep my keys closer at hand from now on. 

Mind like a sieve.

There was something fairly important I was going to write about.  No, really.  It just slipped my mind, apparently.  It was something that was going to anger you as much as it did me! 

 

Oh well, I don’t know what it was.  Sucks to get old and forgetful.  My family is starting to call me Gramma, and I don’t have any grandchildren.  I have granddogs.  One is gay, and we love him just as much as our other granddog. 

 

Here’s one thing I’m angry about, anger.  Why does everyone have to be so pissed off and offended all the time? And “outraged!” .  I will admit that it seems to be my most conservative friends that accept internet pot-stirring as fact and post “outraged” face book status updates and links.  Of course, without verifying the sources first, because it “just sounds like something this idiot would do”.    Much like I would react to anything about Miley Cyrus or the Bieber.  It makes me shudder just to type those names.  Bleh.   Speaking of which, fresh after the Grammys, Kanye pulls another Kanye and starts spouting off about artistry and how again Beyonce should have won for her album.  Him, I’d like to smack.  You can’t just go around comparing one artist to the next and start bitching about who should have won.  The award shows are like the art associations.  They’re very political and motivated by the clique mentality.  This is why I don’t belong to any art associations.  They don’t benefit me in any way.  Maybe Kanye needs to step away from the Grammy academy, or whateverthehell they call it.  Now I’m just blathering on until whatever I was going to write about comes to me.  So basically Gramma is wasting your time now.  I guess that’s something else to be angry about. 

 

 

Sigh.

I may be abandoning blogger.  I haven't been able to post any pictures in months, and if I try to attach it to a new post, which I've done a few times, it eats the post.   I would attribute this to user error, except that not only will it not post pics, I can't get out of that screen and it just scrolls for hours till I have to page back and lose my post.  I'm a tad frustrated.  peace out, blogger.

For Whatever Reason-

I can only post to my blogsite when I'm really busy.  I'm no longer unemployed, for about a month now.   The good news is, so far, so good.  I already get more respect there as a person than I ever did with my other job, and I was the boss (well, the medium boss) there.  And worked with "friends". 


While I've been working on my computer during the day, I've been listening to podcasts, and one of the podcasts I was listening to made me think a little.  Imagine that.  They talked  about when you're writing a book, they sometimes say to start at the end, and then write the story to fit that.  And the question it raised was, if you were dying today, what would you regret most, maybe something you didn't do.  I think for me it was self love, and not doing what I most wanted to do.  Which I'm willing to bet is a very common one, at least for most women.  Hell, I think it's common for a lot of men, too.   They're doing the best they can to support a family, and there's not always room for following dreams when you work 3rd shift at some crappy job. 


So, I plan to spend more time doing what I love, taking care of myself, but not stressing over it.  Because there's a lot more to life than money.  I know, easy for me to say now that I'm older and don't have to worry about it much.  But that's one of the blessings of my life, and when God gives you a gift, you should open it, thank him, and enjoy it.  So that's my plan. 

Well....

I did make a whole new post, and upon trying to add photos, Blogger ate the post.  So instead of wasting a bunch of time, I'll try the pics again, and if it works, I'll rewrite the post.  I do have stuff to do.  But I'm not bitter




And I still can't load pics.  I'll try again later.