Scared

A show of hands please - who's afraid to set foot outside with the rash of random shootings taking place? Seriously - Ft. Hood, Orlando, Oregon and one that hits close to home, Pine Planins, NY. Okay, so Pine Plains was simply a hostage situation in a school by and armed man, but if it weren't for Pine Plains, ny husband and I would never have met, so I take even something that in this day and age would seem trivial (after all, no one was even killed!) seriously. (For those keeping track, that was sarcasm back there.)

I find myself getting twitchy in public places now. On Saturday, my son and I were in Borders - hallowed ground for us - enjoying a few spare moments to inhale that new book smell and pick up a new Del Tora Quest series and a copy of The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie and Literary Society (I never can get the name of that book right). A larger man goes walking past me, saying something really loud repeatedly - what I only now think was likely some sort of singing or chanting - with two early teenage girls following closely pointing and laughing the whole time. In my head I pegged those two girls as the first victims of this man, who on probably any other given Saturday would have been just a run-of-the-mill local nutbag, but in light of all of the events, was obviously a crazed gunman ready to take revenge on a society that can read and communicate without chanting or singing something loudly in a monotone.

And to top it all off, tonight is the scheduled execution of the DC Area Sniper. Who doesn't remember that reign of national terror? Even before I learned that he'd likely driven his deathmobile right along the interstate that runs through our town I was running through the Wal Mart parking lot in zig-zags, resistant to taking my kids anywhere in public and fearful that each time I pumped gas I could die. Right there. Doing the mundane thing I most despise.

I'm not asking for much. I'm not asking for an end to Global Warming or for the economy to go back to clinton-era weath overnight, but please, can't we just stop killing each other for a little while?