A new type of homesick

I am awake at this hour even though I have to be at work at 9 a.m. this morning because I have just reached a new level of homesick. It is not your typical homesick feeling...it is more of a fact that the city has officially freaked me out and I want to go home where I know it is safe.

I was over at my friend Kris' apartment working on some homework for my summer class and just generally hanging out and having a good time (by the time this situation happened we had long since stopped doing any actual work) when something extremely strange happened.

We were on the back patio and heard a sound that I immediately pegged as a gunshot. Less than a minute later I saw a person run through the courtyard in the middle of the night like his life depended on it. I decided it was time to go inside and then for me to head home.

Well I assumed that it was probably a party that caused the scene because it is Saturday night.

WRONG!!!!!!!

As I go to leave I see a couple of Pensacola Police Officers shining lights in parked vehicles. Well I getin mine and no says anything so i start to leave. BEfore I can get 20 feet in the parking lot there is a roadblock of sorts with police checking people. The officer checks my ID, shines the light in my truck under it, in the back and right on me. At this point I am starting to think that maybe my gut was right and something was very wrong with the scene i witnessed. The officer doesn't tell me anything so I keep my mouth shut and finally she lets me go. Phew!! I want to go home really bad at this point.

It gets better...after another 50 feet before I can get out of the complex and onto the main road another officer is checking ID's and vehicles again. At this point I am starting to freak out...I give the officer my info and he asks for my cell number and my SSN#. I am starting to think that maybe just maybe I was right about the sound that I thought I heard. SO you know me I do what I do best and ask the officer a question. I ask if everything is OK or what's wrong. He tells me that there has been a SHOOTING!! I was right!!! OK I seriously scared and want to go home...but I can't help but tell the officer that I heard a noise that sounded like a shot and saw an individual run off.

OMG I want to come home...I was less than 100 ft from a shooting! This doesn't happen at home. I can't sleep because it is less than 2 miles from my home where his apartment is. I keep hearing the gunshot. I keep seeing that man run off. I keep thinking that what IF he had seen me and Kris...would he have shot us too??

This takes wanting to come home and being homesick to a new level. At least at home I know that I want be within 40 acres of a gunshot unless me or one of my family members are pulling the trigger. And then we all get along well enough that we wouldn't be pointing it at one another.

And I thought that I could handle living in Detroit or New York...HAHAHAHAHA Maybe I should rethink that after tonight.