I think this is the most American thing I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t even realize what was happening in the moment. I just saw everyone else duck for cover and followed without thinking. My friend thought it was for a surprise party. We waited there, huddled under tables for minutes that felt like hours, not knowing what was happening just beyond chairs in front of us. Luckily it was a fight at the bar, not a mass shooting, so no shots were fired.
The aftermath was so surreal. Once we finally get out from under our table most of the people had already fled, including the guy with the gun. A family member of the gunman comes up and publicly apologizes to everyone. My friends and I just sit back down and start laughing, cracking jokes about what had happened, it was such a comical experience. Everyone else must have thought we were insane.
The staff gave us our food for free, but we must have tipped like $40 because we overheard a waiter complain about not getting paid for the day. We take our food to go and have to weave around a dozen cop cars to make it back onto a highway where people were none the wiser about what had just happened.
In a very twisted and macabre way, I feel as if what happened wasn’t real or legitimate precisely because no one died. Perhaps an incredibly harrowing experience for others has simply become a funny story for me to tell, because there are so many greater instances of violence that have already become completely normalized.
- fast food
- pulling out a gun in a restaurant
- coping through gallows humor
- waiters not getting paid
- a dozen cop cars outside
- going back home driving on a highway
that's it, this is the most American slice-of-life story I've heard this week
hey, my original comment came off as a bit flippant and callous, I'm glad you're okay comrade... stay safe!
Jesus christ dude I'm glad to hear you and everyone are alright
Inflation’s been a bitch recently. Can’t even go to Chili’s without a special gun coupon.
this is how it always feels for me to eat at a chilis. I have IBS.
In the later days ancient Rome increasingly feeling frustrated with all of people's bulshit
Rome didn't allow weapons in the city limit though as they were worried about former/current soldiers pulling a coup
yeah but only in one way the Romans were also all just terrible people
We'll just keep killing each other as the mechanisms we used to oppress the outsiders inevitably keep coming back home to roost.
The scary part is how normalized it all becomes eventually. A few weeks ago i was stopped at a red light. A vehicle pulled into the gas station on the corner, someone got out, fired four shots into a car that was at one of the pumps, got back in the original vehicle and sped off. Nobody even batted an eye.
I genuinely think that guns are not the problem, but the whole culture of "the tough guy". These lot think they need to prove something, and thus want to be the badass of the day.
The same people who go on about "thug culture" as a way to demonize black people need to take a good long look in white people thug culture.
I firmly believe that the Black Panthers scared the absolute shit out of capital. The reason black neighborhoods are so racked with violence is because power knows the rage there could take them down if it was ever organized and pointed in their direction. This is systemic and intentional. Keep the justifiably angry in a constant state of war with each other and it keeps them away from you. As a bonus they get cheap, exploitable labor and infinite tax money to throw at police departments who then funnel it back up stream to capital. I hate the US so much.
This was the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, it was probably gang related retaliation.
Which American chain restaurant do you think it would be most appropriate to pull a gun at?
That can't be right. There's an entire idiom about how shooting things in barrels is unsatisfyingly easy.
:dorner: “some things are fun to shoot even if they’re too easy, for example:”
:cop:
yeah golden corral was my first thought but I like their yeast rolls so :sadness-abysmal:
Laughter is a form of reassurance that everything’s okay. You were in danger and now you’re not hurt. Relief is normal. Doesn’t make it less real
I'm glad we were all able to laugh about it. It would've been a real awkward introduction to my friend's girlfriend otherwise.
My friends and I just sit back down and start laughing, cracking jokes about what had happened, it was such a comical experience. Everyone else must have thought we were insane.
this is also me in high stress situations lol glad you are ok comrade but why did this post give me a craving for like those chips & salsa they give you at chilis.
whenever something triggers my ptsd hard i go full joker mode and start cackling like a madwoman :jokerfied:
I know what you mean, I think. years ago, I was sitting on a curb in a parking lot, waiting for some auto maintenance to happen, and watched a posturing confrontation between strangers erupt into a knife fight in a matter of minutes. all this taking place within 15' of me, just sitting there having a chat with my mom on my phone.
the shouting was so loud my mom asked me what was going on and I just told her it was a TV because I didn't want her to worry.
despite several attempts nobody managed to stick anybody else before the cops showed up and put a bunch of crying rubes into cuffs. the whole time they were trying to awkwardly grab and wildly slash at each other, I was just sitting there watching, all I could think was how stupid these people were. it felt surreal.
it was kind of a rural setting and everybody in the equation was white, which i am sure contributed. also, i shit you not, when the two units pulled into the lot with lights on, it was like somebody let all the air out of the room. the posturing was gone, everybody emptied their hands, and i swear to christ like everybody was full blown crying. real grade school hours vibe to the whole thing.
when i told the story to friends later that day, i referred to a bit at the end as "the punchline": the cops were gently loading one of the shirtless antagonists into the back of the patrol car, his face red and bubbling with tears, the cop loading him in said like a disappointed dad voice, "every few weeks with you, it's the same thing...."
As someone who has dealt with some pretty fucking wild shit in my almost two decades of retail I can relate.
I gotcha
Edit:
:stalin-gun-1::frothingfash:what do you mean you don’t have this in my size?
