Over the seven decades I have been wandering around this planet, I have sometimes wondered if I have lived my life all wrong.
I wait as patiently as I can when the service in a shop or bank seems a bit slow and I even let people cut in in front of me without (much) complaint. I am not sure that this behaviour can be attributed to my being a nice guy, a Canadian, or a sucker. No matter, it seems I was raised this way. And it ain’t easy to get too far from your raisin’.
But if I had spent 70 years in Tennessee, I might be a different guy altogether.
I submit as my evidence, your honour, the story of a 53-year-old man in Knoxville, Tennessee, who got agitated because it was taking too long for him to get the food he ordered at a well-known pizza takeout. After being told he would have to wait a few minutes, the man left the store and returned with an AK-47 in his hands. He demanded his pizza immediately.
I hope you don’t judge me for betraying a character flaw of mine but sometimes I too have felt like doing something dramatic to get my fast food a little faster. As my hunger grows, I’ll admit, sometimes my morality shrinks.
But the world is still a good place, and so is Tennessee, a state I’ve been to and really enjoyed. Another person in the store who had already gotten her order handed the machine-gun toting man her pepperoni pizza and he fled the scene before police arrived but not before threatening several people at the restaurant, because when you’re brave, it pays to terrify people who aren’t carrying an AK-47.
One person commenting on this story said, “A pizza does not bake faster because you point a gun at it.” This is basic science and good information to always remember, I would suggest.
Now, our gun-toting ammobilly faces a $50,000 fine and many years in prison and needs $90,000 for bail, all because he did not want to wait an extra ten minutes for a $6 pizza.
I know I shouldn’t judge this poor fellow and the trap he has set for himself. It seems he wasn’t lucky, as I have been, to not be raised in a place where guns are worshipped and patience is scorned.
There have been times I wished I had more patience but not once have I ever wanted my very own machine gun.
©2021 Jim Hagarty
