Sometimes I Terrify My Husband
A few weeks ago, Karl and I were in San Fransisco for a few days. No real reason for the trip. He's been bugging me to go somewhere with him, and that's were we ended up. To save money and make getting around town a little easier, we stayed in the Tenderloin district which is one of the more questionable neighborhoods of the city. For the most part it wasn't a big deal. I grew up in the inner city. Adult theaters and prostitutes don't phase me. The overwhelming number of homeless people there was disturbing, but that was just being confronted with the sheer enormity of the problem, not fear of the people in particular. Our hotel was just off one of the main drags in the city, so it was great for catching buses, cable cars, and trains. Loved that.
On our last night in town we decided to go to a tapas restaurant in a part of the city that we'd not been to before, and it meant catching a bus a few blocks off of this main street. For some reason this made Karl really nervous. I kept thinking, "C'mon. How could it be rougher than Market St?" When we got there I understood the problem. It was deserted. It was really fuckin creepy. Everywhere we'd been in San Francisco there were people. Thousands of them. You could not stick your arms straight out and not touch someone on at least one side of you. It was almost as bad as New York. After all those people, the empty streets felt kinda post apocalyptic, and it made me a little jumpy.
We were waiting at the bus stop when I saw a man walk out of an ally across the street and start walking away from us. Since he was the only person around, I was kinda keeping an eye on him, which is why I noticed him repeatedly looking back over his should at Karl and me. As I watched him I started feeling my body language change. My feet spread to shoulder width apart, shoulders squared, and my hands moved up to my hips. None of it was conscious, but shift got Karl's attention. Just as he was about to ask what was up, the guy turned around and started walking back toward us.
Without any thought at all, I hollered across the street at him "WHAT??" The guy went a little stiff, then turned back around and continued down the street ducking down the next ally. Karl just stared at me with WTF look. He really hates it when I do things like that.
My feeling is that I did the right thing even if it was a little dangerous. There was no good reason for someone to be approaching us on a deserted street like that. He was being shifty and very weird and it was making all my warning bells go off. Maybe he was just some guy coming back to ask us a question, and if he was I'm sorry if I scared him. But if he was someone who thought we were an easy target, I wanted to make it clear that we wouldn't stand for any crap. Better safe than sorry.
Someday I'll write about the time someone pulled a gun on me in the McDonald's drive thru. After that Karl didn't let me out of the house alone for weeks. Still can't believe my husband tried to ground me. *giggle*
On our last night in town we decided to go to a tapas restaurant in a part of the city that we'd not been to before, and it meant catching a bus a few blocks off of this main street. For some reason this made Karl really nervous. I kept thinking, "C'mon. How could it be rougher than Market St?" When we got there I understood the problem. It was deserted. It was really fuckin creepy. Everywhere we'd been in San Francisco there were people. Thousands of them. You could not stick your arms straight out and not touch someone on at least one side of you. It was almost as bad as New York. After all those people, the empty streets felt kinda post apocalyptic, and it made me a little jumpy.
We were waiting at the bus stop when I saw a man walk out of an ally across the street and start walking away from us. Since he was the only person around, I was kinda keeping an eye on him, which is why I noticed him repeatedly looking back over his should at Karl and me. As I watched him I started feeling my body language change. My feet spread to shoulder width apart, shoulders squared, and my hands moved up to my hips. None of it was conscious, but shift got Karl's attention. Just as he was about to ask what was up, the guy turned around and started walking back toward us.
Without any thought at all, I hollered across the street at him "WHAT??" The guy went a little stiff, then turned back around and continued down the street ducking down the next ally. Karl just stared at me with WTF look. He really hates it when I do things like that.
My feeling is that I did the right thing even if it was a little dangerous. There was no good reason for someone to be approaching us on a deserted street like that. He was being shifty and very weird and it was making all my warning bells go off. Maybe he was just some guy coming back to ask us a question, and if he was I'm sorry if I scared him. But if he was someone who thought we were an easy target, I wanted to make it clear that we wouldn't stand for any crap. Better safe than sorry.
Someday I'll write about the time someone pulled a gun on me in the McDonald's drive thru. After that Karl didn't let me out of the house alone for weeks. Still can't believe my husband tried to ground me. *giggle*