What surprises me.

It's been a strange couple of days. I don't know if it's sun spots, volcanic ash, or what but today at about 2:00pm in my lab I suddenly realized my button down shirt was on in-side-out. I discovered this while trying to put a ballpoint pen in my shirt pocket which mysteriously wasn't accessible. Why some nice coworker didn't alert me to this fashion faux pas I'll never know but that's not what surprises me. And this has happened before so that's not what surprises me either. What I'd like to know is why my wife let me out of the house this way. I'm not blaming her you understand (I accept fully responibility for inproper dressing)it's just that she usually notices these things and in an unlikely turn of events she was actually up and about when I left for work.

Yesterday provided another moment of interest. I'm sitting in the truck parked in front of an Albersons supermarket waiting for a friend when out of nowhere a police car screeches through the lot, lights blazing, and pulls up in the middle of the road about 50 yards away. Seconds later this is repeated twice more with cops converging on a store from all points of the compass. All the officers were scrambling out of their cars, loading up fully automatic M-16 rifles, and taking up defensive positions around the business of interest. I'll admit this isn't an event that I witness every day but that isn't what surprised me. What surprised me was that not one driver in the lot seemed at all deterred by the three squad cars parked at random awkward positions blocking the main eastern exit to the shopping center or seemed to feel it was even necessary to avoid the area. In fact, John Q. Public seemed to view this as more of an inconvenient slalom course to be nonchalantly negotiated....weapons, bullets, and flashing lights be damned. Doesn't say much for the average citizens sense of self preservation. On the other hand, I was maintaining a generous standoff, watching carefully, and preparing to kiss pavement when the first shot was fired.

Footnote: The business was a MoneyTree check cashing and usurious lending institution. I guess someone must have accidentally triggered an alarm as the officers soon returned to their cars looking rather dejected. My first real shootout was a bust.