Grump

I'm at home, ill, bored and lonely, and no one gives a shit, which makes me miserable as well. They all have reasons for not giving a shit, and if one of them had made an effort, I wouldn't be upset about the ones who didn't. I'm upset because none of them did. Not cross with any individual person, so you can't take offence.

I'm having one of those days when I'm wondering how long it would take people to notice if I vanished.

Strange story

Having got the grump off my chest, here's a story I meant to tell yesterday:

I was waiting at the bus stop on Monday. There was a man earlier in the queue with a toy gun. A large one: rifle or machine gun or something - I don't know anything about them. It wasn't a 'deliberately designed to look like a toy' gun, and he kept pulling the trigger, which made a gun sound effect. This made me nervous. Maybe because, as a roleplayer, I know the sort of trouble people can get into with toy guns. Maybe because recent events make playing with such things in public even more distasteful, even for children, and this was an adult. When I arrived in the queue, the gun was still in its packaging - wire-tied to a cardboard backing sheet. After a few goes with the trigger, he removed the packaging and put it in the bin. He played with the trigger some more, and wandered off, bored of waiting.

I was relieved, and internally debated whether I was overreacting. Perhaps he was a roleplayer, looking for a prop. Perhaps it was a present for a child. Perhaps he was just one of those people who enjoys being provocative. It was now a purely academic question.

Shortly before the bus arrived, he came back, the gun now in a small, thin, plastic carrier bag containing the rest of his shopping. The handle (which I'm sure isn't the correct word) sticking out, obviously belonging to a gun. He wandered up and down the queue of people, perhaps decided whether to resume his original place, and as he passed me, I could see through the thin plastic, the wording on one of his other purchases: 'Meat knife set'. The whole thing suddenly became more sinister. He tried to jump the queue when the bus arrived, and an elderly woman, who had arrived since his original departure, told him off, made him wait. This worried me.

I was staying on the bus till the end of its journey. I hoped he'd get off at some intermediate stop. He didn't, although occasionally, the sound of fake gunfire was heard from the back. I tormented myself with thoughts of what someone could do with a real-looking toy gun and a set of sharp knives, and considered getting off a stop early and walking the extra, because I was scared. Common sense, and being ill, won. I stayed on the bus, got off at the proper stop, and walked the five minutes to my house, looking back occasionally to try to see where he went when got off the bus. I didn't see him.