Homeless man followed us home in San Francisco, said he had a gun

Let’s just say that we prefer getting shots in bars, only.

We’d just hung out with Eric’s friends on a night out in the Mission.

The cold night bit into my skin (tropical girl problems), and Eric held me around the shoulders tightly. It was a brisk walk along Valencia Street back to the apartment. The Mission may be notorious for its homeless community, but Valencia Street had always been considered the safer, more upscale part of town. It felt like a good night coming to an end, when suddenly…

"CASSIE, RUN!" Eric exclaimed while shoving me lightly in the opposite direction of home

Without a second thought I ran – across the street, and into a brightly lit convenience store (or a bodega, as some would call it), with Eric trailing closely behind. What the hell was going on?

In between breaths Eric told me he had noticed a man following us on our way home, and after a few blocks, heard him say he had a gun.

And this very man stayed hot on our heels.

He entered the convenience store where we were ‘hiding’. His two tall targets are easy to spot. The man’s dazed eyes soon caught mine, as I darted back and forth across the aisles. He followed suit. Goddamn it.

This made Eric so pissed.

"What the f*** do you want? Why are you following us?" Eric demanded

The dishevelled man babbled something incoherent – something about us trying to set him up.

Set him up? We realised this man was out of his mind.

At this point we were close to shitting our pants. Okay, at least I was.

Thankfully the shopkeeper stepped in.

"YOU, GET OUT OF MY SHOP!" the shopkeeper shouted at the intruder

After regurgitating a few more incoherent sentences, the man reluctantly left.

We stood frozen in the store, still catching our breaths.

In hindsight, we don’t think the guy truly had a gun. He was probably just crazy. But this was America. Anybody could shoot or get shot, crazy or not.

The shopkeeper let us stay for a while. We wanted to make sure the crazy man was gone before we left.

Good thing he was.

---

Danger averted

We’d been to so many places in the world but it was the first time we’d experienced ‘danger’ as a couple – and it was weirdly therapeutic. Now we can say that we survived a life-threatening situation together!

Guess the other takeaway is that sometimes we don’t need to travel too far from home for that rush of adrenaline.