thewordunheard:

I had my mouth open the whole time. (It’s not going to be a totally accurate retelling because it’s not my story, but this is how it was told to me.)

Basically, he came home late at night, and while he was looking for a parking space he noticed a guy on a bike. He was wearing a balaclava, which wasn’t that weird because it was really cold. But then he saw that the guy was circling back. He parked, and the guy came up to him and took out a gun.

“Wallet and phone,” he said. Thomson said, “really?” Balaclava Guy said, “yeah, really.”

T handed him the phone, but had to root around inside his coat and other layers of clothing to find the wallet. Because he was taking a while to find it, he felt rude (!) and decided to start a conversation.

“Can I ask you a question?” T asked. “One,” BG said.

“Do you really need to do this, or is this just something you’re doing?”

“Nah, man, I really have to.”

“Well, I’m sorry I can’t really help. I don’t have a lot of money.”

“What about your pockets?”

“I have some gum. And a water bottle.” T fanned out his credit cards. “I mean, I guess I have these.”

“Yeah. Which one of them jawns is activated? The ATM one?”

“Aw c’mon, really? We’re gonna do this? Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

T eyed the gun. “I guess you are serious. Look, can I just — can I keep my driver’s license?”

This turned into a conversation about what parts of the wallet were going to be given up and which were to be kept. Including things like Metropolitan Bakery frequent buyer cards.

In the midst of this, T said, “you know I’m just going to cancel these cards, right?”

This is where it gets fantastic.

BG said, “Yeah. Never mind, man. I’m sorry. I’ll give you back your stuff, just don’t call the cops. I don’t know what happened. Something just touched me. I don’t think I’m going to be robbing anyone anymore.”

(Ed. note: WHAT.)

T: “What, really?”

BG: “Yeah, man. I’m sorry. Have a nice night.”

T watched BG walk off, and called after him, “OK! Don’t hurt anybody!”

Another thing that made this awesome: All the fuss over the different parts of the wallet, and the whole time, T had his messenger bag with him, which had a MacBook Pro in it, and BG never asked for it. He could have just snatched the bag with no conversation, sold the computer and gotten more money than he could have gotten out of the wallet.

I have so many questions about this! Is Thomson a big sort of dude? Or at least imposing? How was he able to be so seemingly composed (and even brazen) with a gun pointed at him? I am just having so much trouble processing.