Creeking More In The ATL (with your host Nate Creekmore) Episode #10

I'm not from Atlanta, but I live here, and (because I live here) people who don't live here ask me, "Creek, what's Atlanta really like?"  I don't know what Atlanta is really like, but if you'd like to know what it's like for me, I invite you to sit back and enjoy another episode of "CREEKING MORE IN THE ATL (with your host Nate Creekmore)"!!!

[guest starring Tony Parker, kind of...]

In the city of Atlanta, you might find that it is after dark and that you are tall and brown(ish) and solitary and walking along 10th Street from the Midtown Art Cinema to the Midtown MARTA station.

And you might find yourself walking behind a young couple on a narrow sidewalk.  They're walking too fast for you to comfortably pass, yet they're walking too slowly for you to leave a reasonable gap between them and you.  At first, they won't notice you at all.  But, eventually, one of them will glance over a shoulder and notice your elongated frame looming up behind them.

Their conversation and laughter will quickly taper off into a nervous brand of silence and, as they continue walking, they brace themselves for... something.

Look, I get it.  No one wants to go out on a couply nighttime stroll and discover that an abnormally tall, ethnically suspect male is walking behind them in the same general direction.  Heck, I wouldn't want me walking up behind me in the dark.

If you see me in the light of day, I'm a normal enough looking person.  Occasionally, strangers are even so bold as to approach me and offer their assessment of how I look.

But at night, something happens and whatever it is about me that said "friendly" in the daytime says "goon" after dark.

If you're a male and you find that you and your female companion are being followed by a shadowy ogre, you're thinking one thing:

And the female is probably thinking something like:

...or something.  I never have any idea what a female is thinking.  Also, I'm sexist.

But if you're the lurking, spectral apparition, you've got three options.

OPTION 1:  Run right through them.

OPTION 2:  Say something polite to put them both at ease.

OPTION 3:  Rob them.

But what I chose to do on that night was to have a seat on a wall along the sidewalk and wait for them to walk further ahead, creating a comfortable distance.

Then I got up and went about my business.  No harm, no fuss.

There you have it foks, another exciting episode of "Creeking More In The ATL (with your host Nate Creekmore)"!  Be sure and come back for the next installment wherein I dissect the reasons why I've been told I look like every light-skinned NBA player.  Tony Parker, Grant Hill, Tim Duncan, Rick Fox...