Indeed.
This is the parting shot of the masked robber who came into my office today, vaulted over the front counter, and emptied our two cash drawers.
I can only assume his mother did something right: taught him to be polite. Of course, that whole polite thing does not begin to make up for the thievery, and if he thinks he mitigated our fear/anger/stunned wonder, he’s dumber than I originally thought.
Never in my life did I think I’d see someone do what he did. I was closest to the counter, and thought I was seeing things (a joke? is this a bad JOKE?) when he came over that counter. He was little, too. I could have sat on him and broken some ribs. Skinny punk asshole. We were all so shocked by it all that we just stood there. Which is, according to the nice RCMP officers that took our statements, the Right Thing To Do.
He did have a plastic bag with him, and while suffocation isn’t a worry, the thought of what he might be carrying in that bag gave me pause. Bear spray? Weapon? Don’t know, don’t WANT to know. He was, as I said, quite polite, greeting us before his vault (“hello, ladies.”) and only swearing once (“everyone stay the fuck away from the phones.”) while he madly picked up the money he’d dropped. Unfortunately, he had on the balaclava, a long shirt, and gloves. No fingerprints, and even if we’d had CCTV, it would have been useless. He did almost run down a woman on the sidewalk, and she saw him remove the hat, so perhaps she’ll tell the cops more than we did. In any case, we’re all ok. And we got to leave early because nobody was going to be even slightly functional this afternoon.
