Hello. I’m sorry, but we’re not in right now. We’re out on vacation, to Disney World. We’ll be gone all week.

Maybe I’ll be updating my Twitter feed with our fun and activities. But maybe not.

See you back next Monday.

Bullgrit

I had an errand to run yesterday during my lunch hour. I hopped in my car and drove out on the beltline. Within 10 minutes, I noticed my gas gauge needle was pointing to E. The little orange light started glowing.

My gas gauge only points to E when I’m on a highway. It never shows my tank as near empty when I’m around home or in any area I’m familiar with. And I swear my needle goes from quarter-tank to E within 2.7 miles. And the warning light comes on .3 miles after that.

I took the next exit off the beltline, onto some road I’ve never been on, and started looking out for a gas station. Apparently, I took the exit that leads completely out of the city, and into the country. After driving several miles down the road with nothing but woods and neighborhoods, I almost expected the pavement to end. But then, looking at my gas gauge and the glowing orange warning light, I’d probably run out of fuel before reaching the end.

That feeling of panic when you know you’re running on fumes and you can’t find a gas station is very aggravating. I hate that feeling. It’s a feeling born not just of fear of getting stranded somewhere, but of knowing that I was incredibly inattentive and stupid.

I even had to sit in a line of cars waiting for a construction crew to finish digging some ditch. When the worker holding the stop sign flipped his pole around to say “Slow,” I about shouted. Eventually, I did manage to find a gas station before my engine started sputtering. I must have driven 10 miles down that unknown road. I think I was in another area code.

At the gas station, standing beside my car while the fuel pumped into my tank, I listened to a woman at the pump next to me rant into her cell phone about some crazy girl friend. She never spoke any full sentences, just fragments and phrases.

“I know!”

“Sho’ nuff!”

“Who she sayin’?”

“I’m tellin’ ya!”

I think she said, “Crazy-ass bitch!” at least a dozen times. I don’t know if the CAB was the person she was talking to or the person she was talking about.

Anyway, I filled up my gas tank. Actually, I stopped at 12 gallons — I didn’t know my car would hold 12 gallons — I think my tank was so empty it might have charged me an overdraft volume.

After my fill up, I drove back to work. It took so much of my time driving out to the boons and back that I just gave up on running my errand and went on back to work.

Bullgrit

Occasionally some mundane situation sparks wild imaginings. For instance, a few weeks ago, as I was walking through the parking deck of my office building, I heard a loud bang. At the other end of the parking deck was a van and a man who had just slammed the rear door.

There was nothing sinister about the scene, the van, or the man, but my imaginative mind pretty quickly built up an action/thriller scenario. For the fun of imagining, I mulled the idea in my brain for the remainder of my walk through the parking deck. It’s fun to play “what if.”

I’ve played this kind of mental exercise a lot over the years. I think it’s a part of having a very imaginative mind. But usually, the scenario I create based off some random, mundane occurrence gets no more attention than the idle time I have to give it when it happens.

This time, though, I thought I’d write it down to see how it ends up reading as text rather than just as a thought in my head. And this time was also different in that the location of the imagining was handy for going back and taking pictures of the locations and sights. So, I wrote it all down and took photographs.

After writing it, I considered whether to post it to this site. Everything else I post here are anecdotes from my real life, so I wasn’t sure how something completely fictional would go over. Would some take it as true? Would some take it as an attempt to fraud?

I decided I did want to post it here, but I couldn’t do it without some disclaimer or warning. But prefacing it with such would kind of ruin the feel. Then I rewrote it as present tense rather than my normal past tense. I felt this would make it obvious enough to not seem fraudulent while skipping a preface.

I don’t know. It was a fun experiment, but it definitely doesn’t fit with the rest of my posts here.

Bullgrit

I’m taking a walk for some light exercise and to just get out of the office for a few minutes. There’s a slight drizzle in the air, so I stroll up and around through the parking deck – it’s not scenic, but it is technically “outside,” and it’s dryer than being truly outside right now. I have my Bluetooth earphones on my head, playing music from my cell phone.

I’m on the fifth level of the six-level deck, when I hear a loud bang. I wasn’t paying attention to anything but my immediate path and the music in my head, but at the sharp sound, I look up ahead toward the far end of the parking deck level. I pull my earphones off my head so I can hear my surroundings.

There’s movement ahead, and another loud bang. About 30 or so yards ahead is a van stopped in the driving lane of the parking deck. Two men were outside the van, but one fell at the second bang. The glare coming from the open end of the parking deck, beyond the van and men, makes everything only a silhouette, so I can’t tell any details about the scene. But the twitch and loud bang from one man’s outstretched hand, and the collapse of the second man, makes the situation pretty damn obvious.

“Holy shit!” I say, too loudly.

The man still standing, obviously holding a pistol, jerks his head around to look in my direction. It feels like a minute passes before anything breaks the silence after that second gun shot. “You!” he shouts, and points the gun in my direction, “Stay right there!”

I quickly turn and bolt back the direction I had come from. Ohshitohshitohshit! There’s another gunshot, and I assume it’s directed at me, at my back.

After several running strides, I realize he could probably just keep shooting till he hit me. He might even be chasing me (but I sure as hell ain’t going to look back right now). There was another gunshot, and this time I hear something smack a vehicle somewhere to my right. It wasn’t really close to me, but it was a fucking bullet!

I realize I need to do something other than just run straight away from this scene. To the right, beyond the row of cars, is the open air of outside. But I’m five stories up. To the left, beyond the row of cars is the wire divider separating this deck level from the ramp down to the lower level.

I dart left between parked cars to reach the dividing fence. The other end of the parking deck, where the guy with the gun is coming from (if he’s chasing me) doesn’t have access to the ramp down. He’d have to run this way and crawl through after me, or continue on down to the turn onto the ramp proper.

As I crawl over the fence, I find the cabling to be much more loose than I expected, and the cables droop under my weight. I wobble on the fence for a moment, then I flip over the fence faster than I was prepared for. I tumble down the other side, landing on the hood of a car. I then slide head first off the side of the hood to land painfully between vehicles.

The flip and fall knock the breath out of me, and my right arm between my shoulder and elbow is bruised hard. I’m slightly dizzy from the tumble, but I don’t think I actually hit my head. I scramble up from the ground, using the vehicles on either side of me as props. Then I run out from between the cars and down the ramp.

I hear the gunman shout from seemingly far away, and from somewhere not on the ramp with me, “Stop, motherfucker, or I’ll kill you!”

I continue my run down the ramp and I’m terribly out of breath by the time I reach the fourth level. My right side is hurting – I must have landed on my ribs when I fell on the car hood. I can see the alcove for the fire escape and elevators ahead of me. I hear a motor roaring and tires screeching somewhere far behind me, maybe at the top of the ramp I just ran down.

I turn to run between parked cars on that level, twisting sideways to avoid getting clipped by side mirrors, and then to the fire escape door. I swing the door open and jump inside. I run down the stairs as fast as I can without risking a trip and fall. I hear what sounds like a car collision from the parking area before the door closes behind and above me (I’m already down a level by the time the door closes).

Oh God, I’m worn out and out of breath by the time I reach the ground floor. My arm and side hurt like crazy, and I’m light headed with breathing so fast and hard. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

I stop at the ground floor door and pant. I feel safe in the enclosed stairwell. I would hear if a door above was opened, so I feel that I have a minute to rest. Outside the ground floor door is an open courtyard between the parking deck and the office building. I don’t want to step out and get fucking shot at again. Or worse, step out and be right in front of the guy in his van, if that was him I heard racing down the ramp.

He probably hadn’t had time to circle all the way down the parking deck, but I really don’t know how fast I was actually running through the parked cars and down the stairs. It felt like I had been moving in slow motion.

I’m starting to shake severely. I hold my hand in front of me and watch it quiver. Adrenaline. I was coming down from my adrenaline rush. I continue to stand by the door, staying poised for a leap if it opens. If the guy comes in, hell, probably if anyone came in, I was going to beat the shit out of them. I hadn’t heard a door from a level above open. I still feel pretty safe right here, in this spot.

Oh God, my leg muscles hurt. Is the pain from the running or the falling? I hadn’t run full out like that in, what, ever? Did I actually run from a dude shooting at me? I laugh out loud. Then I vomit. Yeah, shit. I shouldn’t have gone to a buffet for lunch. Two hours ago. Shit, shit, shit.

I feel that I had waited in the stairwell long enough for things to be safe, so I reach for the door lever. My hands still shake. I open the door and quickly step out. I’m running to the office building, but it doesn’t feel like I’m moving very fast. Suddenly I feel very, very out in the open. Panic starts to rise in me, even more than when this whole thing started.

But I make it inside the building. The change from hot and humid outside air to the cool and conditioned inside air is almost stunning. I immediately go to the first-floor restroom. I need to clean up – at least rinse my mouth out.

In the restroom, I see myself in the mirror. Holy crap, I’m sweaty. My shirt is wet at my chest and under my arms. My face was wet and my hair messed up. Why is my hair messed up?

The pain in my leg muscles is subsiding, but my right arm and right side are starting to hurt more. I take off my shirt and see a bruise on my upper right arm. There’s no visible damage to my side, but it still hurts.

Oh crap, I dropped my earphones somewhere in the parking deck. Dammit. I really liked those things.

I’m in the restroom many minutes when I hear loud talking from outside, probably people in the building foyer. I also hear what sounds like a walky-talky radio. Probably the police, I hope. Then someone comes in the room. A cop. Thank God.