Armed and Naive

Still giggling from my Sunday evening-before-I-lose-the-sun walk at the park where I used the walk the pupsters...

Walking on the path right next to the L.A. River, I could hear "popping" sounds and saw four people -- two teams of two -- in army fatigues and black ski masks shooting "machine guns" at each other, hiding behind trees, skulking around.

Of course I knew they were playing -- how could they do that so openly in GLENDALE? Had me a giggle and kept on my walk...

On the way back, they seemed to be paralleling me, but I wasn't going to give up my slow-as-hell-but-consistent pace, and at one point I was right in the line of fire behind one of the gunpersons...

And POWIE, one little pellet, the size of a piece of medium doggie kibble, hit me -- somewhere so easy I can't remember where, but not hard at all.

"Hey!" I yelled -- "GO THE OTHER WAY!"

The person closest to me turned at saw me, then started moving the other direction...thank you, I thought to myself... then one of the gunperson's got nailed by somebody else and I heard a female laugh. Heya! I started wondering how competitive I was myself. Answer: Not very. Unless you count perfectionism as competition with yourself -- most of the time I just call that insanity. Anyway, it's getting pretty dark and I continue on my walk when...

Blue and red lights go off! A siren yelps, then a man on the loudspeaker:

"PUT THE WEAPONS DOWN AND BACK AWAY!"

Ah! The Glendale Police Department to the rescue!

Once more: "PUT THE WEAPONS DOWN AND WALK AWAY!"

Oh my. Are these folks being stubborn? I look in the dark to see the four people drop the "weapons" on ground with the arms up and start walking towards the Glendale P.D. SUV. One of the homes that border the park must have called them... and these war mongers were gonna get in trouble. OOH!

OOH?!

Am I crazy? All of a sudden, in the pit of my stomach, I thought: Am I RETARDED that seeing games like this out in the public didn't make me worry or concerned? Am I that old, or jaded, or NAIVE?

Granted this isn't Israel, or Iraq, or even the Philippines where real machine guns can pop out onto anyone's arms in a second... but it didn't even PHASE me, until the police officer called it a "weapon."

Yikes. But you know, I just chalked it up to age, wisdom and focus on my walk because I still had ten more fence pushups I wanted to do...

FOCUS ON MY WALK? Isn't that funny, me? Yes, me. And I'm still smiling... my, I've changed, if but a little... Is THIS what they call "The Wisdom of Menopause"?! :)