The One Where My Dad Wears a Cape...

My Dad has always been a superhero to me like a lot of fathers and daughters, I would like to think.  It also doesn't hurt that while I was growing up he was a fireman and later put away bad guys.  Is there anything more superhero like than running into a burning building when everyone else is running out or chasing after bad guys when everyone else is running from them? I think not.  Of course my Dad never wore a cape, just a uniform and later a gun.  However, I always pictured him with a cape flying in the wind.

Dad's superhero days were retired years ago, or so we thought.  It turns out that recently my Dad was an unintentional superhero.  Here is the story in the words of my Dad (to the best of my memory):

I was on my way home and decided I needed to get some gas.  I stopped off at the 7-11 on the corner of Avenue and Street.  I went inside to pay and saw a guy standing at the counter and the clerk behind the counter standing there with a startled look on his face.  No one is saying anything.  I start to get impatient because I have THINGS TO DO* so I reach around the guy standing at the counter, plop down my money and say "$20 on pump number 5."  While I am doing this, I accidentally jostle the guy at the counter who suddenly bolts through the back door. Right then the clerk starts yelling "He's trying to get my money!"  It is not registering with me what the clerk is talking about as the guy didn't have anything to buy but the clerk is yelling "I need to call the cops" so I run to the back door and see the guy get into a green Pontiac with another person and take off.  I yell back to the clerk who is on the phone with the police trying to give a description of the guy and where he is headed.  However, the clerk is just mumbling and yelling so I take the phone. I tell the dispatcher my information and she responds "Thank God you got on the phone. I could not understand a word that guy was saying."  They asked me about his license plate and I told them it was covered with snow.  I then heard the dispatcher say "that's him."  I guess they already had the guy by the time I got on the phone.  And that's my story.

What a story indeed!  He foiled an armed robbery!  Well an alleged armed robbery.  No one ever saw a gun. The robber alluded to one.  I defiantly told my Dad that if I were the clerk I wouldn't be handing over any money without seeing a gun.**  My Dad wisely told me that you never want to SEE the gun because then they might actually shoot you and most places train their clerks to just hand over the money.  This poor clerk, trained he may have been, I guess was too shocked and/or scared to comply.  My Dad, on the other hand, had his cape flying.

My Mom thinks this story is funny, albeit scary, because my Dad had absolutely no idea what he was doing when he bumped into the would be robber.  I think of this story as less funny and more SCARY.  Heck!  I remember the days, like the day before this happened, when I used to worry about where my Dad lived as he spends nights in our house that is in a rather rough neighborhood. I have been after him to get rid of the house but he is still there. I finally decided that he is a grown adult who, from what I can tell, is capable of making his own decisions. So I just try not to think about the bad things that could happen. Instead, this happens! In a not so bad neighborhood.  

Crime is bad. Crime is everywhere. 

We need more superheros.

*My Dad is a lot like me, can't you tell?

**Who am I kidding? I would be cowering in a corner, crying and claiming "take it all - TAKE IT ALL!"