One night in the late 80s we stopped at a convenience store to get gas. "We" being the wife and at that time two kids. Daughter was around five or six and son around one or two.
As I approached the clerk to pay I noticed a man leaning back on a rack of oil cans probably a dozen feet at least from the clerk and wondered if said rack of oil cans were going to topple over.
Paid the clerk cash, got gas and headed back to get change.
Before reaching the clerk the oil can rack man appeared out of nowhere(he was no longer leaning against the rack) and started cussing me out. I looked into his eyes which were dark glazy and crazy looking. He was either on drugs, out of his mind or all of the above.
His eruption of words included asking me why I cut in front of him!? My adrenaline was out the wazoo and I decided not to reason with insanity but to lie to it. I told him I did not see him and apologized.
Can't recall his next few words or mine but I do recall deciding within fractions of a second how I would defend myself should he attack me(and I felt it was going to happen). The arms would go up, the body would go down and a leg would go to his stomach followed by whatever need be.
Suddenly he lunged at me with a switchblade but quickly retreated back. He wanted to scare me which was most epically accomplished. "If I ever see you around here again I will cut your balls off!!"
Again an apology offered and he then walked off into the night. The clerk got to keep my change seeing that I was back in the car faster than warp drive on Star Track!
Incredibly, I don't recall anything the wife or kids said. I know the wife saw it because she said something but the memory is more vague than vague.
Life was not always something I felt cut out to do but on that night I was happy to not be cut off from life.
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