Sunday, August 15, 2010

Welcome To What You Didn’t Expect

You go out into a public place thinking everything is safe and sometimes get a big surprise..

Last night we headed out to the local Wal-Mart to do a bit of out of town shopping picking up supplies for our return trip home, we got the usual greeting as we entered the front door “Welcome to Wal-Mart” to which we gathered our basket and began our shopping experience, making our way back and forth finding absolutely nothing we were looking for and a whole lot more.

Half way through the Men’s clothes, Greeting Cards, and baby formula we heard the banging and crashing noises of what sounded like a fist fight going on, the sound of things falling off of the shelves and the screams of women continued to move closer and closer to us, when we turned the corner and saw the large pool of blood on the floor the hair stood on the back of my neck, there was a trail leading away towards the door and the noise of the fight followed the trail of blood out the door, there were firefighters at the door accepting donations and they are the ones who stopped the fight in it’s path, I am assuming this due to the number of police cars that ended up parked right there with a man handcuffed in the back seat and the pool of blood next to a blood soaked shirt piled next to where these firefighters were standing when we first arrived.

The local paper today tells the story of a stabbing back on the fourth of July in which the victim refused to cooperate with the investigation, the stabbing that we ended up way too close to included the same victim and also the same suspect from the previous incident in July, it seems they bumped into each other at Wal-Mart and words were exchanged with the same man being stabbed once again, I wonder if he will again refuse to cooperate? I also wonder why the paper appears to sugar coat what happened in their story Holiday Stabbing Spills Over At Store by saying that the incident was between two groups rather than mention the word Gang, I suppose if you use the word gang then it just may scare folks, not that seeing this amount of blood on the floor and hearing those sounds in a place that is supposed to be safe hasn’t already scared the pants off of a whole lot of people. I guess if you insinuate a gang incident whether it was one or not then the fear escalates and more papers are sold.

At any rate these type of things are happening everywhere now sad to say, we are used to seeing this type of thing happening in the larger cities or somewhere we have never been, it’s really sad to be pushing a basket with your wife and a small child who wanted to go shopping with you and be faced with something that should not be happening this close to you, on our way out the door we saw no greeters welcoming people, instead there was a lot of crime tape and police officers blocking the aisles, the look of shock on the faces of the workers was probably only matched by the same look on the faces of Cindy and I.

Getting back to California is looking pretty good about now.

15 comments:

  1. Wow...please avoid any strange looking characters on your way back home. It is a scary world out there and I think we hear more about it because of things like more media exposure and the internet. This is part of the reason I am trying to watch less TV and go on my computer less. I find things like you described above disturbing and depressing not to mention scary. I am of the school lately that "ignorance may be bliss" after all. The less you know of current events the better these days. I am sorry you and Cindy had to witness something so awful.

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  2. You obviously didn't read my post about "Hell-Mart" did you...jk.
    Wow that was close!

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  3. You are so right..we go shopping and we assume that everyone there is as 'normal' and 'sane' as we are. Thanks for the reality check, it doesn't hurt for me to be more aware of things like this in public. I am glad you guys are all right.

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  4. It's everywhere! Getting harder and hard to escape it.

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  5. Jimmy! How scary! Glad you came out OK. Come back to California where everyone is sane.

    (OK, well, maybe not...)

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  6. Hey Susie, Current events now days are depressing but I suppose we just have to live our lives with faith and be aware of our surroundings, Thank You my Dear Friend.

    Hell-Mart, Yes Sir I can attest that was it :)

    Thank You Joe, I suppose this was a reality check for us too, Bad thing I just found out the one who did the stabbing was an employee :(

    Hey Ms. A, You are right it is happening everywhere and hard to miss.

    Hey Betty, We are ready to get back to the "sane" California Sun Ha Ha, at least I have never seen this happen there---yet.

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  7. Wow, is that ever scary! You and Cindy be safe on your return trip.

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  8. OMG Jimmy....what a scary thing to witness!

    Yawza!

    And you're absolutely right, this type of stuff is happening everywhere. Here in Philly, we've been dealing with Flash Gangs (large groups of teenagers) that are walking into stores and just distroying them. We actually had them in my store twice. Thank god, both times I wasn't working.

    You guys take care of yourselves, ok?

    And hurry back....we ALL miss ya!

    Tell Cindy I said hello!

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  9. Good Morning Suzicate, We are looking at leaving in the morning if all goes according to plan, people can sure scare you at times just glad we were at a distance.

    Hey Ron, Glad you were not working on the days they came to visit, I see no reason for this type of thing but I suppose some just don't care who they hurt.

    Cindy says Hi Buddy!!

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  10. It's a shame that we always have to so aware of who is around us...
    I'm glad to hear that you didn't get caught up in the middle of it.

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  11. Amen Pat, It is a shame that we have to worry about what someone else is going to do rather than enjoy our time out in public, I will not get into the middle of something that does not concern me but something like this could have harmed a lot of innocent folks.

    Thank You my Friend

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  12. Wow- this puts a whole new spin on shopping at Wal-Mart. How scary for you. You never know when they aren't knives but guns and we all know the damage a stray bullet can cause.

    It seems in this world that we are not safe pretty much anywhere anymore and that is so sad. To live in constant fear is no way to live at all.

    Love your site, followed you from Ron's (who I just adore). I am going to nose around a bit now.

    Have a great day!

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  13. Glad to have you stop by, We think a lot of Ron too and feel honored for you to nose around here :)

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  14. What happened to good old fashioned manners about taking fights outside! Hard to get over all the stupid violence out there. Pretty much no where is a totally safe place anymore. I have seen bloody fights in church of all places!

    Please do be careful and get home safe.

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  15. That is our problem today Heather, no one seems to have good old fashioned manners anymore and until this is learned those of us raised with respect and manners will suffer seeing what the others will do :(

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