Through my adventures in life I must confess that I think I've led a bit of a charmed life, despite ample opportunity for catastrophe I have suffered only a little by my way of reckoning. Scrapes and sprains where amputation and horrible consequences could have and should have been the result. Actually, while I'm typing this I am remembering when I suffered second and third degree burns on my lower legs and feet when a steam kettle full of boiling water poured over the front of me....narrowly missing the family jewels. OK, maybe I like to gloss over things but I really do believe that I've had it easy...so when I was mugged in grade eight I ended up not with a scar but with a decent story to tell.
Back in the summer of 1983 or so there was a sort of resurgent interest in 3D movies being shown on TV. One of the TV channels was advertising a string of movies that were made using 3D technology, probably from the 60's, and you too could enjoy these movies if you purchased your very own 3D glasses from Becker's...a Kiwk e Mart harbinger where smokes, lottery tickets and milk for $2.99 a jug could be picked up in convenient locations throughout the city. Including all manner of candy and frozen treats, including the "lola"...sigh, I miss lola's.
So, I don't recall the movie that had my buddy Humberto all hot and bothered but he wanted to go pick up some of these 3D glasses. Now, the nearest Becker's was a ten minute walk in the centre of a three building complex that you generally didn't want to be near after dark. To say that it had a rough reputation would be an understatement. I never went there alone and never at night...generally speaking I avoided the place.
As you may recall, Humberto was the older brother of Paula...the Portuguese girl I was half seeing in those hormone charged years. The same Paula that wanted me to commit to marriage at the age of 15...click on this for that little story Piri Piri Humberto, being fast as hell and pretty strong with his wiry drummer strength, was my usual travel partner and I always felt a little safer around him What I didn't know was that he was a runner. As in there is danger...run away!!!! This would have been helpful knowledge before making the trek for our 3D glasses.
As we left the centre ring of the complex heading for the path along the fence on the edge of the highway we were chatting away about Rosemary's butt or something similar, so we did not notice that guy walking up behind us. What we did notice was the second fellow come out in front of us from the bushes along the path. That stopped us dead in our tracks, which also allowed us to see that we had that other fellow right behind us...uh oh. As they closed in Humberto did his 50 yard sprint routine and left me for dead. Literally he ran off and I had two rather large and menacing looking guys closing in on me...or shall we say, they had closed in while I watched Humberto run away. To his credit, he stood on a hill looking down yelling something like..."hey you, leave him alone!!!" Thanks man.
There I was, left to my own devices with two Jamaican wannabe gangsters in my face. At this point I'd love to be able to tell you that I fought my way out of the predicament or even better, I talked my way out with a combination of guile and humour and me and the boys are still friends to this day. Nope. One of them had grabbed my arm in a vice like grip and started pulling me down an embankment. With his other hand he grabbed the 3D glasses from my back pocket...I was being mugged for 3D glasses, can you believe that shit? You may be wondering what the other fellow was doing as I was being pulled down this little hill to my certain demise, well, let me tell you. He was moving slowly towards me when he lifted his shirt and pulled out what looked like a scimitar or machete from down his pants. Read that again. He pulled a huge ass knife from his pants and walked towards me...and in between visions of being shish kabobed I was seriously trying to figure out how he walked around with that thing down his pants...what with the legend of endowment and all.
I was shitting bricks...this guy was going to knife me for a pair of 99 cent 3D glasses. He was saying something to the effect of let go of the glasses, despite the fact I wasn't in possession of them. The dude holding me now had both of his hands holding onto my arm as I tried to pull away, thus exposing my arm to the machete wielding fellow. He stepped up, raised the blade to shoulder height and came down on my arm sharply and quickly....with the flat edge of the knife. I then yanked my arm as hard as I could breaking the hold and bolted as fast as I possibly could.
Obviously these guys were not going to kill me for these glasses, but it sure felt like it at the time...they did manage to put a shit scaring into me though with that knife. I never saw the movies and I never went back to that complex....and I gave Humberto quite a bit of shit for bailing on me.
And that my friends is my "I got mugged" story. Told ya!
Ciao
D
that is badass
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