Negative Attention
by Kris Weberg on September 16, 2006
Adri's post reminds me of an incident at a Wal*Mart involving myself and some of my friends a few years ago in Peoria. Since she doesn't compromise her rants with dialogue, I guess I'll post it here.
Bored and a bit crazed by finals at 3am one early December Saturday, myself, my dorm neighbors Brant Baker* and Ted HItchens* piled into Brant's massive boater of a car -- he was the only one of us froshes with a car at B.U. -- and started, uh, "cruising" around Peoria looking for something. Restaurants were out, as Ted was broke and I wasn't hungry. Trying to sneak into the bars was out because Brant and I were (then) teetotalers, albeit for reasons of committed geekiness. (The next year, I learned that drinking too much merely enhances geekiness. Also, stupidity.)
So eventually, we wound up at the Super Wal*Mart, a 24/7 location usually full of stoners prowling for Doritos in the fluorescent overlit aisles, harried night shift workers trying to find a deal on a case of beer over their work break, and desperate mothers woken at midnight by sick children frantically seeking cough syrup. Aside from the two cashiers, and some guy whose job apparently involved obstructing random shelves with a mobile staircase, there were no employees.
Anyway, at some point Ted split off from Brant and I, and we must've spent about twenty minutes just wandering the store looking for him, and considering with increasing seriousness the possibility of having him paged like a lost toddler. And then shots rang out. Cashiers jolted up, terrified. The night shift workers scurried for the doors. The mothers crouched in the pharmacy. And the stoners kept looking for Doritos.
Us? We immediately spotted Ted, who'd gone to the toy aisle, where he'd opened, loaded, and started randomly firing a cap gun. At 3am. In the middle of a sparsely populated store. In a part of Peoria not near the accomodating Campus Police station-house.
I believe that was the fastest Brant or I had ever run in our lives, and the most times I'd ever punched someone during a car ride...at that point. Ted lost shotgun privileges in Brant's car for life. And we never went back to Wal*Mart in Peoria, IL, ever again.
* Names changed to protect the people who would never know anyway.
** Yeah, it's a lame story, but if you're all good I'll tell you someday about my adventures with Drunk Mike, the house arrest drug dealer, and a psychotic ex-friend of mine who insisted we take Drunk MIke out drinking with us in violation of something like half-a-dozen federal and state laws.
Four Replies to Negative Attention
Kris Weberg | September 22, 2006
Whoops! Fixed now.
Amy Austin | September 26, 2006
Ah-ha... I was going to say something, too, Aaron! Damn, but nothing gets past you!!!
Delicious candy, eh? Now, I am really hoping to meet you one day, Kris! ;-D
Amy Austin | September 26, 2006
BTW... are we still playing "name that theme"???
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Aaron Shurtleff | September 20, 2006
Is Ken another made up name of another person to protect us from knowing him, or is Ken Ted's nickname, or am I really lost in this story?