I Can't Go Anywhere
 

I meet or know a lot of people.

Some of them as a consequence of my work, others, well, I'm just a gregarious person, I guess ...

So all I was doing was taking out the trash. I have an emergency call for a volunteer organization I belong to to go to tonight, and also needed to grab some brochures out of my car.

So, off I go, just to take out the trash.

No such luck.

Guy pulls up, also to take out his trash. (A lot of people drive their trash to the dumpster, as there are only two at the opposite ends of the complex).

He hops out of his minivan and for whatever reason annouces that he is appropriately disposing of his little bags of dog poop, which were generated by his two little dogs.

As he does that, he actually looks at me, and then says "Oh, you're looking very well, do you remember me?"

Typically I fall back on the "I remember faces pretty well, but often can't put names to them ..."

"I used to see you at the SPCA!"

Phew, I thought. He doen't really remember. Good. "No, I never worked at the SPCA."

I was wearing a nuthouse sweat shirt.

"No, that's right! You're from the Emergency Service!"

"Uh, yeah."

I found out more about him that I would in a standard interview. Turns out he was visiting his mother who is a not-close neighbor, and was doing very well.

We wished each other a good year to come and parted.

As scary as it is to have work "follow me home" that way, it worked out okay. I don't typically get to see people when they are doing well and not wanting to kill me.

If you want to come over, I promise I don't want to kill you. :angel:

(Although, perhaps my status on that first qualification is debatable. :3_eyes: )

I know the feeling well, Wolf. Seeing people on the *brick* as a consequence of my (ex)work can be a little intimidating sometimes. Luckily I live in a fairly rural area so it doesn't happen often, but occasionally I'll come face to face with an ex inmate. I have to do a quick memory scan to try and remember if this was someone I should cross the street to avoid or the rare individual that I actually had a decent sort of rapport with in the prison.

Thus the reason I've had a CCW permit since I started in the department. :apistola:

I wonder what your heart rate was at that point.

Mine would have been in the 'one wrong move and I go for the kill shot' range.

Glad it was a harmless encounter.

Same health benefit as 30 minutes on the stairmaster. :unsure:

At one point the patient asked, "so, how do you think I'm doing?"

My response was, "Well, I think you have noticed that I'm just standing here talking to you, and not trying to back away. You can take that to mean I think you're doing pretty much okay."

I also got introduced to his small, cute furry dogs, which puts an entirely different tone on the interaction. Of course, it could have been a Buffalo Bill type ploy to get me closer to the van, but it turned out not to be. I suffered minor amounts of dog drool and escaped unharmed.

Strange as it may seem, I was unarmed, except for a small pocket knife.

Yeah, but I'd be willing to bet you could incapacitate him in eight different ways with that pocketknife. :)

ten.

How could I incapacitate thee? Oh, let me count the ways!

Hey Wolf, do they have mandatory training classes in your line of work where they try to teach you self defense and such?

I remember when I first started out in the prison they were teaching really inane self defense techniques that would surely get you killed if you actually tried to use them in a real situation. Like you're suppose to remember some 10 step technique that didn't even work in the training class when some pissed off, 6'3" 250lb. convict is trying to take your head off.

Eventually they did wise up to real life and started teaching more useful things like down fighting, effective strike areas and knife attack defense. Still, when it came down to it and the shit hit the fan, fear and instinct takes over and you're going to pick up the nearest heavy object and hit the guy with it. :eyebrow:

well, let that be alesson to you. never go anywhere unarmed(except maybe the shower)

The shower??? Why make an exception for that? I bet Janet Leigh wishes she had been armed in the shower.

I'm sure there are items in the shower that could be used as pretty good weapons themselves... grap the shampoo bottle, squirt the soap into the perps eyes, beat them with a loofah, cut them with a razor... the possibilities are there.

LOL

steve - as i was typing that post i actually thought of janet leigh, but i wasn't sure which cellarite would get me with it first. congrats.

My jobs have not been in quite as interesting fields but I have worked construction and retail quite a lot. The town I live in is in a tri-county area that really is not all that big. The scary part is just how many people I suddenly realize I recognize on site. Ofcourse having the memory of a crack baby it is often hard for me to remember where I saw them.

I find it really bad when they recognize me and start talking and I have to bluff till I figure out where I know them from. Usually it only take a few seconds. But I know what you mean Wolf. My wife claims she cant take me anywhere. I usually bump into someone I know. I live in South caorlina. While visiting a friend in New York state I was walking in the mall and bumped into a girl that I knew in high school. Went to Delaware and met a man whos plane I use to refuel in SC. Went to Utah and bumped into a couple of guys in letter jackets from my high school. They were from a year or so behind me but still. Frankly it keeps me from being lonely AND helps keep my paranoia up. :eyebrow: