Stick 'em up

One of my good friends at the newspaper was held up at gunpoint yesterday evening. A man approached her while she was at her car, which was parked on the side of the building she works in. He pulled a gun and told her to hand over her bag, which she immediately did.

The guy got away with her reporter note pads, some pens and nothing else. I bet he was disappointed. All her identification and money was in one of her pockets. She was a little shaken but is now fine.

The whole event has created hysteria in my department. By the afternoon a new policy was adopted similar to the buddy system practiced by Boy Scouts. One reporter in a bureau now fears someone is going to take the newspaper rack in front of his office and throw it through the glass front door.

The man I share an office with talked today about packing heat on the job. Frankly, that scares me more than some anonymous robber. The man I share an office with is just about deaf. I'm afraid if I drop something on the floor and ask him to please "pick it up" he may think I am saying something entirely different like "stick 'em up."

Who says it isn't dangerous being a reporter?