Since This Morning; January 30 2023

I had things I was going to blog about, this week. I had topics in mind. Some of them were even writing-relevant.

This day has effectively obliterated those topics because I’ve been given a lot to say as of 9 AM this morning. But before I walk you back through the hours, let’s start with what literally just happened.

I took my kid to school for a half-day. She had a dentist appointment in the morning, see. I’ve been kind of rushing around and in the process, I forgot to bring my headphones with me for the trip back from her school to my home. No big deal, really. It just meant I was able to pay attention to what happened on the bus directly across from me.

A mother had her son in a stroller. I’d put this kid around 4 years old, max. He was fiddling with his mother’s phone, handed it to her for approval, and she downloaded an app for him. All this is fine.

But the app title, ‘Gun Shooting Simulator’, caught my eye. And I thought – no. Surely not.

The mom passes her phone back to her son. He then lifts it up and starts pretending to shoot passengers on the bus. The phone makes a fairly realistic sound of a gun going off with each shot. He aims, fires. Fires. Fires.

Then he looks at me. Gives me a little wave. I wave back. The kid lifts the ‘gun’ and shoots me.

The most the mom was doing throughout this was shushing him, urging him to get the volume down on the phone. I said nothing. I was kind of reeling.

This alone was an upsetting thing to witness.

It was made so much worse by the news I received this morning – again, 9 AM – that the lawyer representing me in my lawsuit against the police (following the SWAT raid, if you need a reminder) is retiring, thus closing my file. I am urged to find new representation ASAP.

My mind’s been on the raid all morning. I was on the phone after having sent three emails to different law firms by 9:30. My mind’s still racing and I feel physically nauseous with panic. We are not letting this case drop. If we do, it will haunt us forever.

It certainly still is right now.

I’m not one to tell any parent what they should or shouldn’t do. As far as I’m concerned, most of us are just doing our best.

But if your kid wants to download an app that allows them to pretend to gun down people on the bus, maybe don’t fucking do that.