bomb threat
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Last night on my way home from work, I tried to spend the $50 gift certificate that Sears sent me to make up for the the air conditioning fiasco this summer (when they botched the installation). I tried to find a new electric toothbrush, but they only had models starting at $150 or so. Then I tried to find a decent belt (I have two, but they're both ageing). No luck - all they had was cheap 80's style crap like those "reversable!" belts. So I tried to find some new socks, because my size 16 feet are hard on socks. But no, they don't carry the "king size" socks (which the Bay, at the other end of the mall, does).
So I wound up buying three pairs of underwear. Yes, three pairs of underwear for $50. Well, it was actually $45 with the taxes in, which left me with $5 on the card. Rather than try to cope with more painful shopping at Sears, I handed the card to the fellow behind me in line. He looked at me in surprise, and said, "what's this?"
I explained the situation to him, and he thanked me. While I packed my expensive (but made-in-Canada!) underwear into my panier, he stepped up to the counter to make his purchase.
The sales guy started harrassing him about applying for a Sears card at this point. The conversation went like this:
"Do you have a Sears card?"
"No, I have one."
"Would you like to apply for a Sears card?"
"What? No, I have one. What do you mean?"
And so on.
Happy to have three new pairs of free underwear, happy to have Sears behind me forever, and happy to have helped out a stranger (with his underwear purchase, or whatever), I was doubly pleased to be jamming up the cashier's one-lined sales pitch. The two were still debating the Sears card application when I got my panier packed up and marched off, smirking.
Then I cycled home and when I passed the local cop shop (division 53) it was all roped off with police tape. I had never seen a police station roped off with police tape, so I tried to ask the woman officer near the car that they were using as a corner of the police tape WTF. She was busy and didn't answer, but when I went back to the area later on an errand, they'd advanced their blocade of the police station, and weren't letting anyone within a block of the place.
I asked one of the officers at the intersection if anyone had been hurt, and he said "No. It's just an investigation."
Immediately, I thought: bomb threat? I have nothing to go by, but what else could it be? Hazmat spill? (gasp) Or has the police station been taken over by criminals, and they have to call in SWAT and then there will be a hostage standoff, like some kind of crap 70's flick??