Serial driver.

I had a big scare today. I took E and D to Target to get a few things. It was only nine or so in the morning and the shopping center was pretty deserted. You have to understand, of course, that even for supremely rational folks like me, getting gas or going to a shopping center is a somewhat uneasy experience. Not because of the likelihood of getting shot by this workaday sniper, but because of the sheer randomness.

Anyway, when we got there, I saw neither a solitary white cargo van nor a white box truck, both of which have been described as leaving the scenes of the murders.

I saw a white cargo van with a box-truck-like trailer attached. It even had pale lettering on the side of the box, just as described.

Big deal, you say. But wait a minute. This would be a somewhat likely explanation for the conflicting reports. Either the sniper is using two different vehicles, or the witnesses saw an unfamiliar thing and fixed it in their minds as something more familiar--say, a box truck if they saw it from behind, or a van if they saw it from the front. Before you throw up your hands (and why were you eating your hands to begin with?), remember that in the heat of a moment, memory becomes very unreliable. That's why eyewitness testimony is never as damning as forensic evidence.

In any case, being the good, cautious citizen that I am, I circled the vehicles and committed both their tags to memory, then went and found a parking spot. (I looked for a pen with which to write the numbers on my hand in case I was taken out--damn it, if I had to die at least I could help the cops--but I couldn't find one, so my posthumous heroism would not be.) I took D and E out and put them in the stroller as quickly as I could, then went into the store, never more conscious of the steep, high, tree-filled embankment next to the store and directly behind me, where the van and the trailer were parked.

That wasn't the scary experience, though.

That was when we were on our way home. I was in the left lane, preparing to turn onto my street and going maybe fifty miles per hour. When suddenly, the prototypical Old Man in a Buick decides to turn into my lane from another street. Except he's going only twenty miles an hour, and OK, he's just stopping at the divided highway, he'll let me go, oh no he won't, he's continuing to drive like I'M NOT EVEN HERE, OH SHIT, LEAN ON THE BRAKE AND THE HORN, THERE'S PEOPLE BEHIND ME, PLEASE PLEASE DON'T REAR-END--

It was then I was forcefully reminded how much more likely a traffic accident is than a shot in the back. (We didn't get hit, but The Old Man in the Buick never noticed the human drama playing out behind him. Or my horn, for that matter.)