I tried to get my dad to come down for a visit to get him away from the circus, but he said that he had too much to do, or he was going to go camping. On the surface he seems to be doing fine, but I can tell that this incident is going to trouble him for a very long time. He said that the dad/owner of the building is planning to tear it down and put up a memorial park in it's place. He asked me if I thought he was selfish for not wanting that across from his house. Of course not, actually, as he was telling me about the plans, I had been thinking the very same thing.

I heard that the state AG told the town to stay silent about the incident. I'm with him on that. Everyone is boo-hooing about not being able to drool over the details -- but what gives them any right to know? It is a very private town and this was a very private thing. We all know what happened. Let these poor families grieve in private! They certainly don't need microphones shoved down their throat or to be followed around by camera crews. What happened there really doesn't concern the rest of the world, save for maybe getting better police screening (although I reinterate that this really had nothing to do with him being a cop -- it just incidentally happened to bring up that issue).

Since my parents weren't going to be here this weekend, we went ahead with our plans to tear out the bathroom floor and finally tile the damn thing. We found the perfect tile online and drove down to Dubuque about 5 years ago to buy them. I think it is about time that we actually make use of them.

Saturday was far too nice a day to be inside ripping up rotted bathroom flooring, so I planted most of the 400 spring bulbs that I bought over the last couple of weekends. By the end of the day, my back was sore.

Sunday we actually got to ripping out the flooring. You know what, trying to get vinyl flooring off plywood is a pain in the ass! We ended up just ripping out one whole piece of 1/4" underlayment because half was rotted and half of the other half has nothing under it to support it! And the bastard that put the damn stuff in used threaded nails on everything. What a nightmare. And in the process of trying to get the underlayment out, I pulled something in my back.

My back was still aching and pinching this morning so I got to work a little later than I had intended. SSB gave me a ride since my back was still bothering me. As we were about to turn down the street to the store I told him, "Just drop me off at the street. You know how crazy the parking lot behind the store gets in the morning." As we came around the corner, I could see several cars parked behind the store, some sideways. They were cop cars!! SSB pulled in, and I jumped out to find out what was going on. The cops were being pretty tight lipped, but I did manage to pull out of them that the store had been robbed shortly after opening, everyone was OK, but the guy got away.

Robbed?! YIKES!

Apparently the guy came in the back door with a soda bottle full of some kind of accelerant, poured it all over the floor behind the pharmacist's counter, then approached the cashier's area where he dumped the rest right next to our front end manager, and threatened to light everything on fire if they didn't give him some drugs he wanted. He was completely obscured by gloves and mask so they couldn't get a good description. Elle gave him what he wanted and he left without further incident. Apparently he even said, "Thank you. I'm sorry" after she handed him the drugs.

I always knew in the back of my mind that something like this could happen, I just really didn't ever want that to be true. Elle was really shaken up, but she kept the store open the whole day. The place reeked of whatever he spilled on the floor. We had to keep both doors open just to avoid contact highs.

Our front end manager came up to me after the police let me in the building and said, "You know, I have always said that we should always have some one else here at 8:30am... in the back, just in case something like this happened." She was talking about me. My schedule is very flexible, it has been since the day that I started. It is part of what has kept me at the job. She seems to be very jealous that I can come in later in the morning -- but she forgets that I also stay later at night. How did all this become my fault? So what if I had been there with them? What the hell would I have done? She obviously has heard the tales of my heroics on the bowling lanes; but how would my special powers of loudness get them out of that mess? My mere presence would have probably just pissed him off. I have that effect on people.

I've had my fill of excitement for a while. I would like just one week of no dramatics/tragedy/trauma. Just one week!

3 comments:

sideshow bob said...

Not having a toilet sucks!!!

"AG" said...

That's scary!! I'm glad you weren't there!

Michael Manning said...

Glad you were okay! That's like a scene from "The Twilight Zone". What a crazy world we live in!

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