Setting: OfficeMax parking lot
Date: May 20th 2005
Characters: Old Man, Jared, Chad, and The Crazy Veteran.
Story: Today is my brother Jareds birthday. As we rolled into the OfficeMax parking lot in my old man’s F-350, he proceded to swing real wide into a parking spot. As he swung out we heard someone blowing their horn over and over. So he stopped. A little red car zipped between us and our parking spot and parked in a handycap zone. We curse him under our breath and continue to park.
We get out and begin walkin to the store. As I pass the guy while he climbs out, he appears to be an older feller with some dark shades on. While walkin by him, I casually say “Ya know, a one ton truck needs to swing wide to be able to park.” He retorted with some negative remark that I didn’t clearly hear. So my old man got in on it. Dad pretty much repeats what I already told him about big trucks needing to swing wide. The old guy walks to the passenger side of his car, reaches in the glove box, and pulls out a handgun. His wife is freaking out, and begging us to walk away. I gotta admit, I was completely on her side, being currently unarmed.
Things would have been fine, but this ol’ weasel was just lookin for a fight. And my old man was willing to take a bullet to give him that fight. Not exactly something I can say I’m real proud about, mind you. So my old man gets up to the guy and brainlessly decides to give this ol scutter a “tap”. More like a push, on the shoulder. And like anyone would expect, the barrel of his gun was now pointed right between my ol’ mans eyes.
Thats when voices get raised. I yell at the guy to put his gun away. He responds with “He assaulted me! He punched me! Yer under arrest!”. That pissed me off. So I called him a spineless pussy, and told him to put the gun away, and put up his fists like a real man.
Needless to say, he wasn’t up for that. So my dad keeps gettin closer to the guy while telling him to “go ahead and shoot me!”. The guy yells back “I’m a disabled Vet! I’ll blow your F—ing head off!”.
Walter! Hah! Thats it! This guy is just like Walter from the movie The Big Labowski!!!! I coulden’t believe it. I was laughin to myself, as I told the guy “Dude…. This isn’t Vietnam”.
So I told him he got exposed to a little too much Agent Orange, or somethin to that effect. And my dad says “This guy’s never set a foot in Vietnam”.
By now anyone out in the parking lot was running for cover, and a mom right behind the guy grabs all her kids and runs back into the store. And about 20 people call the CDA police dept.
I have to continually grab my old man by the jacket, to keep him from walkin any closer to the guy, while the guy kept screaming “I’m a veteran! Don’t come any closer! I’ll blow yer head off!”. Me and my brother break out our handy camera phones to get a picture of this clown with a Berretta .40 cal pointed as us. At least, thats what it looked like from the size of the barrel. As I hold my camera up, he quickly hides the gun behind his back, like a pansy. Dang it. That woulda made such a great photo. Well… All I got was him holding it behind his back.

So I get tired of this, and grab my dads jacket and tell him to go into the store. Right then the cops all come flyin in with sirens blaring and lights flashing. Now we’re surrounded by police, all with their guns drawn, asking us who has the firearm. Jared is off in the store now, so it’s just me and dad. We point at the crazy old guy, and back away from him. The guy lowers his gun, and sets it on the asphault. We are all ordered to our knees and cuffed. They seperate us and get our stories.
They gather all the witnesses, and after getting everybody’s story, both my dad and the crazy vet were suspects. The Vet, because of his handgun, and my dad for getting in his face. They take the guys gun away, and turn us loose. We’ll see what the prosecuters make of it.

Happy Birthday Jared.