Halloween isn't a holiday that needs to be dragged out or celebrated two weekends in a row. Dressing up is fun, etc but there's no law that says you can't dress up and drink any other night of the year. This year I went as "Zombie Belle" and Guy (who didn't feel like dressing up) put some fake blood on his ear and went as Vincent Van Gogh (they look pretty similar).
We went to a party with some friends and they had to leave early- I didn't really know as many people there as I thought and was ready to leave too. We eventually left with the intention of walking until we found a cab, but never did. When we were all but two blocks from our house, a car pulled up across the street and down a little bit from the corner we were standing on, and a man came up to us with a hood pulled up and a gun raised.
A GUN! WTF!? He said "Give me your shit right now or I'll fucking shoot you." Nothing will sober you up faster than a person POINTING A GUN AT YOU. Guy tossed him his wallet, I threw my clutch in his general direction. Then he said "Get on the ground and don't try to look up at me or I will fucking shoot you." This was definitely not his first rodeo. We got on our hands and knees and looked straight down at the ground-
he ran back to the car and drove away.
Once the car was out of sight, we stood up and brushed ourselves off. I had a moment of hyperventilating "holy shit. holy shit. oh my god. did that just happen? holy shit". Guy gave me a big hug and told me it was ok, we were ok. No harm was really done, aside from losing Guy's wallet, my clutch (which only had my dead phone, some lipgloss and my Costco membership card) and our sense of security in what was supposed to be the 'safe' area of the Heights. I remember sprinting home and immediately calling the cops. And then immediately changing clothes and wiping off my zombie makeup. Guy called and cancelled his credit cards, I put my phone in "lost mode" and we filed a police report. The police let us know that these types of crimes are rarely solved, due to the police force's lack of resources and attention being dominated by homicides and kidnappings- to which I scoffed "This COULD HAVE BEEN EITHER ONE OF THOSE." It didn't matter. By some great luck, Guy chose to leave his cell phone at home, and I didn't bring out my wallet - overall, things could have been so. much. worse. Something like this could happen to anyone, anywhere. It was terrifying and terrible, but it could have been so much worse, and I am so thankful it wasn't. People were asking if we planned to get a concealed handgun license- but if I had one, that would've meant that A. I brought a handgun to a Halloween party and B. The thief would now have two guns because there is no way I would have escalated the situation by trying to fish my gun out of my purse and defend us. I will never 'walk until I find a cab' again. Even in the safest of neighborhoods.
There two major insults to the injury. The first was that whoever ended up with my phone was charging up the battery and driving it all around Houston (presumably trying to sell it?) and because I had put it in "lost mode", I would receive an e-mail anytime my phone connected to the internet in a particular location that said "Erin B's iPhone has been found". I forwarded all of these e-mails to the police investigator assigned to my case, and they eventually led to me going down to the station to look at some photos but as of now (1/8) I haven't heard anything from them. I wanted to press charges to stop the precedent that this crime goes unpunished in our neighborhood. We pay a premium for a false sense of security, and the criminals know that. I don't want this to ever happen to anyone ever again. Ever. Oh well, I tried.
The second insult to injury is that I looked like this when it all went down:
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| prime target right there- at least I looked good |
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