I didn’t actually heed the warning, and just went “that way” anyway. Luckily, I guess I’m alive to tell the tale. … Saying I’m “alive to tell the tale” makes me feel like I’m making this way too suspenseful. I don’t think I was ever actually in danger.

Earlier tonight, I went to Chipotle to get some food. The nearest Chipotle to the team house was inside a pretty big shopping plaza. Chipotle specifically is deeper into the plaza, where you can only access it by walking there, rather than driving right up to the front door, parking, and entering. So, I had to find a parking spot a little off to the side, then walk to get my food.

After snaking around the busy California plaza, I finally managed to find a spot. I parked and started making my way to the restaurant when a random guy yelled out, “Don’t go that way! You’ll get messed up.” Confused, I assumed, possibly unwisely, that the warning wasn’t entirely justified, and that I wasn’t actually really in that much danger.

As I walked closer to Chipotle, I started hearing people yelling at each other. I still didn’t really feel tense or in danger, and I just wanted to get my food and go back to the team house, so I kept going. I proceeded to walk close enough to see what the thing that would “mess me up” was – two random people were fighting in the middle of the walkway in front of Chipotle, Panera Bread, and a bunch of other restaurants.

I quickly determined that it was an actual one-on-one fight. Meaning, it wasn’t one randomly guy being destructive to the public, and a hero fighting him. Had it been like that, it would’ve been in my best interest to probably leave, or else I might have actually gotten messed up. But, rather, they both looked intent on attacking each other. Thus, I just strolled right past them and entered Chipotle to put in my order.

After several minutes, I finished placing my order and got my food (which took some time because I was ordering food for other people too). On the way out, I realized that the fight had subsided. It seemed like a victor had emerged, fled, and left the victim behind. It seemed like someone had also already called an ambulance, because there was one in the parking lot.

The team’s gaming house is in a pretty wealthy area of California, so I determined that seeing something like this would be very rare, as higher-income areas tend to have lower crime rates. So, before I drove off, I turned around, looked through the back window of the car I was driving, and snapped this photo of the ambulance (I didn’t want to whip out my phone and take a photo of the actual fight, because I would rather not draw attention to myself, especially from those already engaged in a fight).