The gun incident

I was driving home from DD’s on Saturday afternoon when I saw flashing police lights in my street. There were police cars everywhere and the cops were directing everyone away.

I took it as a sign I should head to my sister’s house for a glass of wine.

When I got home about an hour later, I looked up my suburb’s Facebook page to check what the blardy hell was going on. Of course my suburb’s Facebook page has the goss, as it always does. Its followers are a vigilant lot.

Someone asked: “What’s happening? Road closed, police everywhere?!”

And someone answered: “2 men on the run – one armed with a gun. People need to lockdown.”

Lordy!

Another woman said: “Spoke to a woman at the shops who said the guy held a gun to her husband he’d called the police.”

Then someone else wrote: “I just rang the police station and they couldn’t tell me if the men had been caught. They said just lock your doors and stay inside.”

Heavens, I’d just been taking pizza boxes out to the bin blithely.

I should clarify that I live in a very long street and the epicentre of the action was quite a few blocks away.

But STILL. Ooooh er!

I should also clarify that I live in a very quiet suburb. People don’t normally run around holding guns to shopkeepers’ heads.

Actually, what am I talking about? Someone held up the local pharmacy the other day and assaulted the shop assistant. Some wags on the Facebook page thought it was an excellent time to crack funnies in the comments.

I must have a strange sense of humour because I didn’t think it was an excellent time to crack funnies in the comments as SOMEONE HAD BEEN ASSAULTED. I don’t think they’d have found it quite so amusing if it was someone they knew who’d been assaulted and deeply traumatised. But I decided not to say so in the comments section because it gets VICIOUS in there if you disagree with anyone.

It’s best to remain a voyeur. People actually comment that they’re getting out the popcorn when someone says something controversial because it invariably gets a bit like when you heard there was a fight on in the playground at high school and everyone started running over to egg the opponents on.

Anyways, there was a security guard out the front of the pharmacy for a few weeks after that. But I think he’s gone now.

What is the world coming to?

Meanwhile, DD’s cousin may be staying longer in Australia because they’re considering shutting down the school where she teaches in Hong Kong while the corona virus rages through Asia.

Flipping heck. Talk about it feeling like the end of days.

Best not watch Contagion again any time soon. My nerves are jangly enough as it is.

Did the Australia Day weekend get hairy around your way?

Song of the day: Men at Work “Down Under”