Quote:
Originally Posted by mckaytrek
Wow Jage.... you must have picked some really bad areas in Austin to stay in a hotel/motel!
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Haven't you ever ready any of my posts? I've got all the luck!
I actually drove all over Austin stocking up on groceries and looking for gluten free food for my trip home. I was getting on the interstate for the last time from an access road with decently heavy traffic, both West-bound. I was in the 3rd of 4 lanes with the on-ramp directly in my lane just past the traffic light.
The light would change and traffic would move forward in all lanes. I noticed a tall blond fellow walking on the sidewalk. He seemed a bit strange- I would say homeless despite fairly new backpack, as it stood out from the rest of his attire.
Traffic was just outpacing him, but he started out closer to the intersection. The light would change, we would surge forward then stop, and he would continue walking.
Just as I stopped for the last time before the light, about 3-4 cars back, he seemed to be having an argument with someone in the first or second lane just forward of my position. I couldn't imagine anyone actually engaging this person in a confrontation, conversation or anything else. I tried to guess whether someone had had such a bad day they'd take it out on a random pedestrian. I also tried to figure out which car held the antagonist, or the target of his attention.
I was trying not to be blatantly nosy, it seemed like a situation I didn't want to get involved in, but which my rear-view between my eyes and the blond guy I tried to look at all the cars without turning my head.
The overwhelming impression I got is that somehow a car-length ahead and 3 lanes over, I was the focus off all his attention. Even so he wasn't actually looking at me, the van or the trailer. How very strange I thought. As the light prepared to change he started walking again. I was glad to think it was over, but as the light did change to green he started jogging to keep pace with traffic.
I kept my eye on him, still thinking somehow he was focused on me, or the van even with his back turned. He paced himself to beat me to the corner by a few cars, and the cut over the right turn lane to an island and turned to cross the lanes of traffic just in time to get in front of me. My thought was, "Jesus C., he is going to run out and throw himself under my van because he thinks I can't stop or something." He'd timed it perfectly too, but he stopped at the edge of the lanes still on the island sidewalk.
He looked right at me for the first time and as I covered the last car length to the intersection (and to being abreast of him), but instead of running out, he reached down and pulled an imaginary gun, pointed it right at my head- there was no doubt as he tracked me that he was aiming straight at my head- and pulled the trigger. At the same time he did a "blaow" sort of sound with his mouth (at least that's what it looked like).
I swear to you that he really thought he had a gun. There is no doubt that he had been marksman enough to track and kill me, even moving. It was no imaginary finger pointing episode, this guy really thought he was taking me out.
*That* was my final experience in Austin.