They Took His Gun!

You are about to read a story about perhaps the most insane set of circumstances ever to collide in this earthly realm. First, a little back-story...

Friday nights were very busy because of High School football games. As games ended, the kids felt the hunger pangs of the required post game pizza. So they came to us. Now, most of them didn't actually have money for Pizza, so they came and milled around waiting to bogart pizza slices from their more fortunate friends. Occasionally, one of them would save of for a few weeks and buy a cinnamon stick or something. Thus, the large number of customers on Friday nights equated to a very low amount of profit while dissuading people who could actually afford pizzas from coming to the store to get one.

So, the managers decided they needed a rent-a-cop to chase off all the people standing around, with the hopes of bringing in some real customers. It's a sound financial strategy, but as it turned out, rent-a-cops are either freaking insane, or stupid.

We had guys who would sooner kill you as look at you, eyes darting around, twitching trigger fingers. We had idiot weaklings that sat around all night drinking cokes and talking about their military knife collections.

And so it was, that once more, the perfect storm of ridiculous circumstances collided and then exploded. Our rent-a-cop was fat, and arrogant, and pretty dumb that night. He was just asking for ridicule from kids who attend high school football games. They didn't hesitate to oblige.

So, mentally assailed, he descended upon two girls who sat peacefully eating their cinnamon sticks and told them to leave. (We guessed they looked like easy targets with which to assert some kind of authority over) Alas however, they said no. He told them they had better leave, or else. (Or else what? We were never quite sure). Obviously, this made the entire crowd pretty mad, so they all started teasing the guy and challenging him to duels and things like that.

Note: He did have a gun. We were worried he might use it.

So the kids left, and congregated in the parking lot (always a popular place for kids to hang out). The rent-a-cop was not happy, he wanted them as far away as his jurisdiction allowed (I suppose in his mind he was president of the world or something). He went outside and was immediately surrounded by chanting teenagers.

The facts from this point get a little fuzzy, I can only relate what happened inside the restaurant.

The manager suggested that the strongest of us go check on the rent-a-cop and make sure he was still alive. Spanky went to check it out. He returned with a grin plastered on his face and said, "You won't believe this, they took his gun!" (A fact later denied by the rent-a-cop when I asked). There was some speculation later that it might have been his Maglight instead, but regardless, the ball was rolling.

The manager cussed and dialed 911. She told the operator our address and then said these words into the telephone, "Shots have been fired!"

Our mouths were agape. Did we just hear that? Had she somehow misunderstood Spanky?

Moments later, the police arrived in a show of force that would have made Osama pee his burka. From every direction they came squealing in, slid sideways, and catapulted officers out of every door, guns drawn. The police helicopter savagely swished a search light around the parking lot. The kids scattered.

The police successfully managed to stop another teenage girl who was driving by at the time but had not even entered the restaurant. She was probably going home from church or something. No other kids were captured.

That rent-a-cop never entered our store again. I did see him one more time though, as I cashed my paycheck the next day at the bank across the street. He couldn't keep the calm in a pizza restaurant, but he could definitely take down an armed robber… Right?