Yeah, I'm still here...

Maybe he didn’t see me. Maybe he didn’t come looking for me. Maybe that cop car that went speeding through the lot didn’t see me or wasn’t even looking for me. 

It was just after noon and the temperature outside was flirting with 100. My fancy little hybrid car turned off after about 10 minutes and I may not have noticed. The radio shut off and the temp inside the car was quickly climbing.

I sat in the silence and watched a big black SUV pull into the lot and park at an angle about 200 feet from me. Several guys in black SWAT gear got out and immediately laid on the ground by the SUV in sniper positions and pointed their rifles at my car. Guess that the cop did see me and was looking for me.

Wait a second…did you just say a SWAT team just rolled up on you?

Yes, my friends, a SWAT team was called to blow my head off if I tried to kill myself. I shit you not. 

My iPhone began ringing and as I answered it, another large massive black SUV came and this time, it drove right up to my little car and touched its huge bumper to mine. Well, it sat much higher than my car so it was more like the grill filled the windshield of my little car. The driver got out and ran behind the SUV with a weapon and pointed it at me. Yeah, this is all getting a bit surreal at this point. I looked at the caller ID and knew that it was Theresa.

“You lied me to me. You said you weren’t tracing the call. You lied!” 
“What do you mean, Chris. No, I didn’t. What’s going on? What’s going on?! “ 
“Well, I got a half a dozen guys pointing guns at me right now!” 

As I said that, another SUV, a police car and a large SWAT vehicle. You know, the ones you see on NCIS or some other crime shows. About 4 guys piled out of that and took up sniper positions all around it. There were now about a dozen guys pointing guns at me as if they were about to try to take Mosul and Fallujah. How the hell did all of this happen? I just wanted to rid myself all of all of this pain and hurt and now I am staring at a scene where I would expect Denzel Washington to get out of a squad car, grab a bullhorn and begin telling me that he is the negotiator that is going to work through this with me. I guess that shit they do in the movies is legit. Except someone else started yelling at me with a bull horn.

It’s now got to be over 100 in my car. I have Theresa on the phone, pleading with me to tell her whats going on. There are a dozen guys with weapons pointed at me. I have a massive SUV pulled up to the front of my car with its bumper over the hood of my car to make sure I didn’t try to drive away. And now I got someone yelling at me, to throw out my weapon. Yeah, this is going to end well.

Someone else started calling me so I finally thanked Theresa for lying to me and told her that I just wanted someone to talk to and now I have this mess and I hung up so that I could take the other call.

“What?!”
“Chris, my name is Detective James and I am going to help you through this.” 

Holy shit, they really do say that in these situations. This time, it was clear that Detective James was a female officer and her tone was a bit more…well, pleasant isn’t quite the word, but we’ll go with that, for lack of a better word.

“I haven’t done anything wrong. I have a gun and the Republicans say that I can have that so I haven’t done anything illegal.” 

Honestly, I do not know why I had to throw in a little bit of politics there but I remember clearly saying that. I think it may have had to do with the absurdity of the situation. Someone that wants to shoot themselves being met with more guns. If you can figure that one out, let me know because I would love for someone to explain it to me.

 The detective quickly agreed that I had done nothing illegal but added she wanted to help me through this so that no one gets hurt.

“Well, let’s start by getting all of the guns pointed away from me.” 
“Chris, we need to get that gun away from you first. Do you still have the gun?” 

At this moment, you might be inclined to think that someone in this situation would be terrified. That the sight of all of those guns pointing at you might be a bit intimidating. You might also think that everything would be a blur. Well, I am here to tell you that time has a way of standing still in these moments. It did for me, anyway. Normally, when I see a cop, I immediately drop my speed and try to get a seat belt on, as nonchalantly as possible. Regardless of where the officer is, whether he/she is driving directly behind me or parking at a McDonalds, I tend to feel some sort of anxiety that I have don’t something wrong. However, fear nor intimidation were present at that moment. I was furious. Some nut case can walk around a shopping center with their gun out or some idiot can eat a burrito while their God given right to carry an AR-15 is safe but I can’t sit with a gun in a parking lot without having a SWAT team present?! But I digress.

The air inside of the car was barely breathable. My black, long sleeved shirt was soaked with sweat and my eyes were burning from sweat pouring into them. The detective on the phone repeated the question if I still had the gun. I had made it 47 years without ever shooting a gun and my first attempt was looking to try shooting my way out of this mess didn’t seem like a very feasible option. Tom Cruise, I ain’t. So as tense and stressful as the situation was, I realized that I didn’t have too many options. By now, I was livid with the entire situation and I just wanted it all to go away. This was a bad idea that had gone horribly wrong and I just wanted to forget that it happened and move on with my day. I was angry at the guys standing in front of me, pointing weapons at me. I was angry at Theresa for lying to me. I was angry at the detective on the phone that wouldn’t leave me alone. I just wanted it all to go away. 

“Chris, are you there? Do you still have the gun? Talk to me, Chris.” 

Jumping out of the car and yelling at these guys didn’t seem to be a good idea but I didn’t really know what else to do and I was just getting more and more pissed about it. 

“Yeah, I’m still here.”
“Chris, we need to get that gun. Is it still loaded? Can you empty the chamber?” 

I have to remind you that I had never fired a gun prior to this moment so I had no idea what that meant, to ‘empty a chamber’ although I had an idea of what was being asked. And I had played with the gun enough by then to know how to remove the magazine. I started to think that the only this was gonna go away was if I just did what I was being asked and maybe they would leave me alone. 

“There’s nothing in it. I removed the magazine and it’s no longer loaded.” 
“OK, that’s great, Chris. Now I need you to roll the window down and throw the magazine out of the car. Can you do that for me, Chris?” 

I was just plain hot and pissed off at this point and wanted this over. I wanted to go home and pretend none of this happened. But that didn’t look too likely. And then my phone lit up and my wife was calling me.

Fuck 

Ok, enough for today. Writing all of this stuff brings me back to that day and sometimes I get too much into my head and that is rarely a good thing. The point of this post was to A) tell my story and B) remind you that once you begin setting wheels in motion, they can take on a life of their own and you can lose control pretty quickly. If you are hurting and feeling desperate, find someone that can help you. I would strongly recommend a call to 911 or the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

But whatever you do, just know that a nap or a drink or a hit from a bong isn’t going to make things better.

Don’t do this on your own.

Find someone that can and will help you.

Don’t wait.