prof_pangaea | note to self: don't do that

today was a bit more actively full of insanity than normal. i've been campaigning for a small political nonprofit lately, and an hour or so into my shift today the sky became orange and black and tornado sirens started going off. obviously i was walking around by myself with no shelter to be had, so i found a walgreens and hunkered down until someone came to pick me up and drove me back to the office downtown. then about ten minutes after i'd finally got back we went back out and started campaigning again because thewarning was over and it had stopped raining. while talking to lots of disgruntled white people i got to hear someone say that the tax on cigarettes was unfair because the money went to fund children's healthcare programs, and if some kids are going to be sickly all the time then maybe they should have just been aborted. also talked to a dude who seemed quite nice except he kept talking about how his wife had just left him a couple of weeks before and she'd taken his dogs and what was he going to do with this house and look at all these caterpillars on his bush, they were eating all of the needles and he'd spent a lot of time on that bush, he'd spent TWENTY YEARS keeping that bush healthy.

i ended up signing out later than everyone else, because i was the only person to get a formal field report form printed out before the printer died. usually i try to get a ride home with peeps cos headquarters are in a slightly shady part of town and taking the bus home required transferring to another bus at an even shadier area. not that i've ever had a problem before, but i do realise i am a tiny gay trans white guy. i had to decide between waiting for the transfer for about a half an hour on martin luther king blvd (doesn't matter what city you're in, MLK is never in a good neighbourhood), at an unlit bus stop, or walk home through a somewhat shady area, but one that i've walked through before and that gets better with each block closer to my street.

apparently my choice to walk home was the wrong one this night, since i got jumped by three young guys and beat up and robbed. dude ran up and punched me in the face, i ended up on the ground, two other dudes ran up and joined in. i was like, "oh fuck", cos i didn't know if i was just in for a mugging because i was small and alone, or if it was an attack cos i looked gay/trans whatever and they had just decided to give me a serious beatdown. in the middle of getting punched repeatedly i was like, "hey, what do you want, i'll give it to you!" and first dude was like, "do you have any money? give us your money!" so i was like, "okay, sure, let me get it," and pulled my wallet out of my back pocket. one dude tried to grab it but i actually said, "hey man, let me keep my driver's license" and kept a hold of the thing, pulled out the little cash i had, and held it out to them. one of them took the money and they all ran off (after punching me one last time, i'm pretty sure). they'd broken my glasses and knocked the lenses out, so i got up and started looking for them in the grass by the sidewalk for about thirty or sixty seconds before i thought, "wtf me, those dudes are only like A BLOCK AWAY." so i consoled myself with one lens and then called 911 on my cellphone in case they noticed they'd only got away with maybe 18 bucks (at most! probably more like 12) and a ticket to pridefest, and decided to come back for more.

the nice operator was like, "is there a safe, well-lit place nearby, like a gas station? you should walk towards it." and i was like, "um... no, i'll just walk toward my house,", cos there WAS a gas station, but it was almost across the street from where i was attacked and i'm pretty sure *someone* must have seen that shit go down. managed to get to art bar (a bar near my house) and i stopped there to wait for cops. i thought that was maybe a good idea since i couldn't see anything, and it's a safe place. talked to cops, showed them area where attack took place, got driven home, talked to roommates, called sister, cops came back to take some photos of my swollen face, talked to my sister again.

i'm actually pretty upbeat, except for the loss of my glasses, which i can't afford to replace. thankfully i've still got my old pair, but they do suck, rather. oh well. other than that, i got some bruises and am out less than twenty bucks, which is pretty good considering i got jumped by three guys. which is what i told my sister when she was freaking out. then she said that as a revenge i should invent a "backpack helicopter" and then fly over those dudes and pull down my pants and take a shit on them. these are the kinds of things my sister comes up with, which is why i love her.

meanwhile, this story is all much funnier if i tell it in person. oh written text, you really *do* affect tone!