Nightcrawler
Member
Well...I was going to save this for the great amalgamated thread of Southern Mississippi stories, but oh well.
So there I was, sitting in the van at the gate of the park I'm guarding. It's about 0100, and fairly quiet. No traffic is coming in, so I don't have much to do. Hence, I'm sitting in the van reading a novel called The Shiva Option.
POP POP POP
Gunfire rings out. I mean, no big deal. Gunfire rings out nearly every night around here. Doesn't bother me unless it sounds close. This was close, folks. Sounded like a nine millimeter.
See, about a hundred meters up the street from the gate I work at is a hip-hop type night club. Apparently, some kind of disagreement broke out in the parking lot, and was then settled the old fashioned way.
I get out of the van to take a look (fortunately for me, there's about fifty to sixty meters of thick trees between me and the parking lot of this club, so I'm out of the line of fire), and three more shots ring out (I think it was six, total). Real close, real loud, and I can smell the powder in the air. The parking lot of the place empties out, people are yelling, and I call the town police (for like the fiftieth time).
Okay, I admit it, that startled the crap out of me, being so close. I'm not used to being on a two-way firing range just yet, my year in the middle east not withstanding. (Hell, I was never even shot at in the middle east, except for that one time.)
A short while later one, that is, ONE police cruiser rolls up, doesn't have his lights on. This stuff happens so often in this town, apparently, that they weren't even running code. Nobody was hit, in any case, so it probably wasn't worth getting to worked up over.
Honestly. People carrying on like that! I've got seven days left down here, then I'm on the plane home at long last. It'll be great...right up until the IRS tears a wide, deep strip off of me...my pay hasn't had any taxes taken out...
*sigh* I'll be happy if I have to send them less than ten grand. And I'm hoping that my Qatar money, despite being tax-exempt, doesn't kick me into a higher tax bracket, upping the money I have to pay yet again. If I spend four and a half months living in a tent down here to turn around and give the IRS twelve or fifteen of it...
Well, I'm going to cry. Cry like a little girl.
Let's hear it for tax cuts!
So there I was, sitting in the van at the gate of the park I'm guarding. It's about 0100, and fairly quiet. No traffic is coming in, so I don't have much to do. Hence, I'm sitting in the van reading a novel called The Shiva Option.
POP POP POP
Gunfire rings out. I mean, no big deal. Gunfire rings out nearly every night around here. Doesn't bother me unless it sounds close. This was close, folks. Sounded like a nine millimeter.
See, about a hundred meters up the street from the gate I work at is a hip-hop type night club. Apparently, some kind of disagreement broke out in the parking lot, and was then settled the old fashioned way.
I get out of the van to take a look (fortunately for me, there's about fifty to sixty meters of thick trees between me and the parking lot of this club, so I'm out of the line of fire), and three more shots ring out (I think it was six, total). Real close, real loud, and I can smell the powder in the air. The parking lot of the place empties out, people are yelling, and I call the town police (for like the fiftieth time).
Okay, I admit it, that startled the crap out of me, being so close. I'm not used to being on a two-way firing range just yet, my year in the middle east not withstanding. (Hell, I was never even shot at in the middle east, except for that one time.)
A short while later one, that is, ONE police cruiser rolls up, doesn't have his lights on. This stuff happens so often in this town, apparently, that they weren't even running code. Nobody was hit, in any case, so it probably wasn't worth getting to worked up over.
Honestly. People carrying on like that! I've got seven days left down here, then I'm on the plane home at long last. It'll be great...right up until the IRS tears a wide, deep strip off of me...my pay hasn't had any taxes taken out...
*sigh* I'll be happy if I have to send them less than ten grand. And I'm hoping that my Qatar money, despite being tax-exempt, doesn't kick me into a higher tax bracket, upping the money I have to pay yet again. If I spend four and a half months living in a tent down here to turn around and give the IRS twelve or fifteen of it...
Well, I'm going to cry. Cry like a little girl.
Let's hear it for tax cuts!
