All In a Day's Work

Seriously, I'm a walking trap for near disaster.

First, I have to preface my stories with the fact that I'm not trying to make my school look bad. I do overall feel safe, but these are just two situations that have happened in the last couple months.

A few weeks ago, I was studying on campus on a Saturday afternoon. I usually study in a lounge right inside a main entrance into the school. These doors are usually unlocked until 6 pm on weekends. Around 3, a guy walks in. I can only really see his legs because he was standing in front of a stair case that blocks most of my view. However, he was pacing and talking really loud. I was listening to music and assumed he was on his cell phone. After about 5 minutes, he sits down on some stairs about 50 feet from me and just stares at me. I started feeling the primitive feeling that something just wasn't right. He continued to yell, stare at me, then cuss when I wouldn't answer him. I packed up my stuff and went up to a classroom on another floor.

About 45 minutes later, I went back down and he was gone. I decided to stay down there and continue to study. About 5 minutes later, the cops show up asking about the guy. I told them what happened and they said they were going to look for him. After about an hour, one of the cops came back to see if I was alright. Apparently the guy had called the cops on himself, saying he was wanted, and told them where he was. Smart cookie! The cop assured me that even if I just feel uncomfortable that I should still call the police. He asked if I knew the number. I looked at him with a dumbfounded look....uhhhh 911 was all I could get out with a slight chuckle? The whole while thinking, "Does he not know this has been drilled into my head since before kindergarten?" He looked at me with an equally dumb look, but because he thought I was an idiot. "No, you can call the NON-emergency number"

Today after an MD/PhD meeting, I was walking across campus to get to my next meeting of the day. I called Anthony for a quick hello. As I was passing through the pedestrian bridge, I hear over a walkie-talkie, "......DO NOT APPROACH. He has red hair and is wearing a black trench coat. 6'2"......" Something wasn't right. I turned to my friend to ask what was going on. He didn't know and didn't really seem to care. I hung up with Anthony and started trekking across campus. In the hospital hallway, I stopped to talk with my lab manager about a couple things as she was going back to the lab after working out. A lady comes up to us and asks if we see cops at the end of the hallway. We said no. She repeated that there WERE cops and we needed to get out of here because there was a gunman somewhere with a rifle. Wonderful. We duck into the bathroom and then finally decide to take a few back hallways back to our lab. We made it just fine though we were a little creeped out.

Apparently it ended up not being as big a deal as it was made out. A person was seen with a "potential weapon" but the police couldn't locate them. However, I'm still waiting for my emergency text message that is supposed to alert us when there is a problem on campus.

As I started walking back across campus, I passed the cop that thinks I'm a complete idiot. He gave me a friendly smile, but I could see the question in his eyes. How do you always get yourself in the middle of these things? I know, man, I'm wondering that myself.