The incident

Last week I spoke about an "incident", something that I didn't feel the need to share on my blog. I didn't want to make a huge deal about it, but I think by being all weird and secretive about it, that's making it more of a big deal than by just writing about it! Besides, this is a forum where I can share what's going on in my life, and this is something bizarre that people would probably be interested in hearing, so here's the "incident" in all its creepiness.

I was walking back to my office building after running some errands in the middle of the afternoon. Beside me on the sidewalk was a scruffy looking man, walking slightly slower than me. As I passed him, I noticed that he quickly filed in right behind me....very close...nearly stepping on my heels as I walked. His proximity made me uncomfortable so I picked up the pace to create some much needed personal space. As I sped up, so did he. I found it odd that he was walking so close, so I began to walk very quickly, knowing that if he was still on my tail, then something was definitely going on.

Sure enough, I was speed walking and so was he, still directly behind me. He began to make some loud noises, as though he was hocking a loogie or something, and I was all, "oh hell no, this weirdo is NOT going to spit on me." I took a furtive glance over my left shoulder only to realize that he was even closer than I had realized. It frightened me. I didn't know why he would be walking this close behind me and I began to worry. I could see the front door of my office building and broke into a half-run, arms outstretched toward the front doors. The guy behind me followed suit and began to half-run behind me. I lunged toward the doors and he lunged, pushing himself up against me, and me against the door. He said a few things that I can't even remember now. My heart was beating rapidly and my hands were shaking. I couldn't pull the door open with him pushed up behind me so I quickly slid over to the second set of doors, immediately to the left of the first set. Of course, he followed and once more pushed himself up against me and tried to reach around and grab my arms. I was already trying to pull open the door and he had me pinned up against it. He was holding me from behind when he said, "you know you're not strong enough for me." He clearly underestimated my willpower to get out of this situation, because at that moment I pulled the door open and slipped through, sprinting straight for the security desk in the lobby.

The guard had seen through the glass that I was in some sort of trouble and was already up and coming toward the front doors of the building. I looked back to see my assailant, thinking that he was about to run for it. Despite the presence of the security guard, the man came charging into the building toward me. I was already shaking and completely freaked out. He was hollering something but I was too distracted and confused to even listen; I just ran behind the security desk. The guard got him out of the building and I stood there, shaking, crying, wondering what the hell had just happened and why.

The scariest part for me, was that this all happened at 2:30pm in the afternoon on a fairly busy street. It made me feel so vulnerable. It did more than catch me off guard - it made me think about how easy it is for something like this to happen at any time in any area of the city. I work downtown, but not the "bad" area of town, so this isn't something that I would ever expect, yet it happened. This wasn't something that I was "ready" for, and it also made me realize that I really don't know what to do in that sort of situation. I vaguely remember my high school self defence course, but it all happened so fast, and you can't really knee someone in the balls when he's got you pinned from behind.

That night I started playing the "what if" game in my head....what if it was at night time...what if he had a knife...what if nobody else had been there...what if I couldn't have gotten the door open...what if...what if...it nearly drove me crazy. Sometimes I love my overactive imagination, and sometimes it scares the shit out of me. I'm trying not to think about what happened, but at the same time, I'm certainly not going to forget it.