Out of Proportion

My actual hood as seen to your right.


Last Friday I made the fateful decision to head up to Santa Monica for a doctor's appointment and a little lunch with some friends.  As I was headed to my friend's house, the road I was traveling on was immediately barricaded by police.  Now, for most of you this would spark some curiosity as to what was going on.  You might think, "Gee, I think I'm going to get out of my car here and ascertain what is the matter.  I sure hope no one is hurt...and I'm sure glad these police officers are stopping traffic and not allowing any kind of detour."  However, if you have lived in Santa Monica, or any city for that matter, sadly your real first thought is, "Seriously!!!?"  Followed by, "Awesome, what did some idiot do now?"  So, as soon as I saw the brake lights ahead of me and the flashing lights of cops, I did what any street smart driver would do, immediately, hooked a left onto a side street and rode it until I hit another barricade and then...did the same thing.  Finally, after running one red light...that was definitely yellow when my foot accidentally slammed on the accelerator...I reached my friend's house.  And then the other sad thing happened...all through lunch we listened to sirens and helicopters, and again, not once did we feel inclined to find out what was going on.  It wasn't until our friend was an hour late to lunch did we think to maybe turn on the news and found out there had been a shooting a mile away.  A mile away.  Did we panic then?  Nope.  Just kept eating lunch.

I tell this story for two reasons, one, to obviously show how numb cool and urban I had become in Santa Monica, and two, to show how ridiculous the burbs are making me because last night, while we were finishing dinner, I heard a lot of noise coming from outside.  Immediately, I sprung out of my chair to see two boys playing some type of "Throw a ball against the garage and then grunt over and over as you run to get it..." or something like that. For ten minutes I just stood there fighting the urge to not go outside and tell them to shut up.

So again, actual shooting in city, no reaction.  Boys playing loud game outside my quiet condo - about to go postal.