we are all being lulled....

...into a false sense of security. It 's sad, and scary, how we think we are all safe, completely secure, well-protected. Enjoying all the benefits of living in relatively safe neighborhoods, under the vigilant eyes of public safety worker. Men and women who choose to dedicate their lives to provide protection from all the evil in this world, and crazy people.

The incident that occurred last week makes me think I need to make it a regular practice to practice regularly with my handy little hand gun. Just to cultivate the comfort level I would need to be able to use it on short notice. To know how to load in a sense of doing it as matter of habit. Along with the ability to use it if the necessity should arise. Plus the confidence to think I might hit what needs to be perforated.

There was a ... hmmm... attempted burglary? break-in? failed robbery? hot mess? at my work place the end of last week. Not only was I not present when it occurred, I was not even in the neighborhood: gone to TN for the weekend. So I missed all the excitement. Thankful for that!

It happened early one morning, when the earliest workers, people who come in hours before the store opens, are arriving: at four or five a.m. Bakery people who start baking, deli people who start cooking, grocery/stock clerks to unload warehouse trucks, produce guys to start putting out fresh goods. There was a man, mostly covered up, except for his eyes, with a shotgun hiding in the lobby area, between the two sets of electric doors. Snuggled up to the rows of shopping carts. Waiting for someone to come in who would get the earliest arrivals to come and unlock the inner sliding doors. Then he jumped out with his gun, and blew out one of the glass doors. A grocery person was hit with several bits of shot, but she is ok, not serious, and recovering. The early produce clerk, Vince, was involved. He was the one who was trying to get in the store to start work, and ended up saying: 'Please don't shoot me'. I don't know if it was a double barreled shotgun, but if not, the burgling guy was mostly harmless at that point. Vince went tearing out the back door, setting off the exit alarm.

I think the bad guy dashed out the front door, and apparently got away. I am sure this will cause Publix to re-think their early morning coming-in-to-work policies. I understand there has been a black-and-white sitting in the parking lot every morning since this 'alleged incident'. But if I were Vince, or Brittany, the young single mom, who was shot in the arm, I would be thinking about retirement.

What this means is that something similar, fueled by drugs, or envy/greed, or desperation, or unemployment, or just run-of-the-mill craziness can happen anywhere, any time, to any body. Remember a year ago, when I wrote about our house being burgled?  Crazy people abound.