Creeking More In The ATL (with your host Nate Creekmore) Episode #41

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)"!!!

[A Man With A Gun]

In the city of Atlanta, on the corner of North Druid Hills and Clairmont Road, I was accosted by a man with a gun.

There's nothing especially unusual about a man with a gun.  I'm an American, you see, and like any patriotic, freedom-loving American, I believe it is our God-given natural born right to acquire, possess, brandish, and bear any kind of arms we can get our hands on.

However, as a result of my own lack of initiative, the only guns I've ever owned have the word NERF pasted prominently on the side.

But it was a good thing I didn't happen to have any nerf guns on my person at that time.  Nothing angers a man with a gun like a man with a nerf gun.  Or a BB gun.  Or a squirt gun.  Or an index finger extended in a gun-like fashion.

Luckily for me, this particular man with a gun was not angry (I would describe him as agitated/upset) but, because he had a gun, I was in danger of being shot.  

A lot of people may not be aware of this statistic, but you are more than 3 times more likely to be shot by a man with a gun than you are by a man without a gun.

Now, this wasn't the first or last time that I was ever accosted by a man with a gun (in this particular instance I was in my late 20's), but each time it happens I find that I am nervous.  On the outside, as he rode up next to me on his motorcycle, I appeared to be my usual, stalwart self.

But on the inside, I was falling apart.

I was trying to remember the rules of what to do when confronted by a man with a gun... stop, drop, and roll?  Look both ways?  Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy?

Then it came to me:  If a man has a gun, he gets to make the rules.

No! Creek!  He has a gun!  Don't antagonize him!

Good, good... steady on...

CREEK!!!  YOU IDIOT!!!  HE HAS A GUN!!!  A GUN!!!  DO YOU WANT TO GET SHOT??!!??

*Phew*  That was close.  Too close.  Don't provoke him.  He's already on edge.  Look at him.

People were driving by, looking at me, shaking their heads.  No one was going to help me.

I was doing my best to remain calm and he was only getting more and more belligerent, trying to get me to talk back and give him an excuse...

This was going badly and there was nothing to be done.  Was this to be my end, shot in the street?  Maimed?  Marred?  Murdered?

What if life itself is just a man with a gun?

What if, each moment, I am but a Halfrican-American Boethius, strapped to Fortuna's capricious, arbitrary wheel; the entirety of my physical existence balanced precariously between the mundanity of day to day life and the sudden outbursts of unprovoked violence that threaten to erupt at any instant...?

And then, just as abruptly as the situation began, it was over.

What was I to make of it all?  Was there any lesson to be learned?  And what did he mean that I have a "good attitude"?  Can I use that the next time I encounter a man with a gun?

I wish he'd given it to me in writing.

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 we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of crossbows.