Small Town Girl: Crazy People

by - 7:35 AM

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Nothing much ever happens in my hometown near Rotterdam. Sure there are a few crazy people around: the paedophile from down the street, the mentally handicapped guy who likes girls a little too much and one or two violent drug addicts. But they keep quiet and if you didn't already know they where there, you'd never know.
How different it was in London, where the crazy people are impossible not to notice. I saw a man try to beat up a map of the Underground because he couldn't find out where he was. One man must've thought he was a tour guide: he kept pointing out invisible buildings to an imaginary crowd. One... one even wanted to kill my dad...

It was our last night in London and my parents and I where looking for an Indian restuarant. As we were walking down the street, a man came walking towards us. He had dark brown skin, dreadlocks, wore saggy pants, overpriced sneakes and an oversized shirt and sweater. You know the type I'm talking about, if not from real life, then from internet and movies.
This man kept walking straight at my dad. My dad simply refuses to step aside in situations like these. Usually the other person steps aside, sometimes shoulders bump and on this occasion, things went very wrong.
My dad and the man didn't just bump into each other's shoulders, it was a serious collision. If it had been me, I would've been flying towards a painful meeting with the sidewalk's concrete. My dad made an indignant noise and already started to walk away when the man started yelling at him. I'm giving you the uncensored version so yes, do expect things to get nasty from now on.
'Hey! Are you fucking blind or something? Didn't you see me or what? You fucking stupid man?'
Now here's one, no, two things you need to know about my dad: he's a black belt in karate and doesn't step down from a confrontation like this one. Never.
My dad turned around, looked the man straight in the eye and said: 'Sure, I'm stupid.'
I can remember thinking he was going to give us a karate demonstration. That nothing could go wrong for my dad. I was so naive.
'Yeah? You fucking stupid?' the man yelled. 'You want me to kill you or something?'
When I heard those words, I froze. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't even think anything except for 'it's over, we're done'.
'I'm gonna fucking shoot you in front of your family!' Tha man, only a feet or two away from my dad, reached for something inside his pocket. I didn't want to find out what he was reaching for. Neither did my mom.
'Come on, let it go, let's get out of here,' she practically begged my dad in Dutch. I was afraid he wouldn't listen to her. He never listens to anyone when he's enraged.
'We're going,' he said in the same language while maintaining eye contact with the lunatic that wanted to kill him. Then, suddenly, he walked away, my mom and I right at his heels. I was terrified the man would follow us, but all he did was yell more threats and throw more F-bombs at us.

We never made it to an Indian restuarant. My mom was trembling with fear and I walked around like some sort of zombie. All I wanted was to go back to our hotel room. We ordered pizza and took it back to the hotel. It'd been a long time since I'd been that scared and it'll be a long time before I'll feel completely comfortable in London again.

Stay Awesome!

PS. Sorry for all those swear words...

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2 Fellow Ramblers

  1. Wow so trigger happy people exist in England too? I thought it was just the US with lousy gun control!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup, the trigger happy people exist in England too. I don't know if the guy had a gun or if the UK's gun control laws are lousy, but it sure was scary to see him reach for something after threatening to kill my dad...

      Delete

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