To be filed under "My Soap Opera Life"

After a rough week and a half, I told Stu I really needed to get out for some personal "breathe" time.  I went to Rosedale Mall on Saturday night and shopped for over two hours.  I was looking for a new pair of jeans and maybe some new shoes and ended up with two camisoles.  As I was exiting the mall, I heard a hubbub that I have heard a few times in my life.  After graduating from high school, I didn't think I'd ever hear it again: the sound of a fight breaking out.  I was on the first floor of the mall and just above me, near the entrance to Borders, I heard young men start to yell and could see people running toward the melee.  I could hear the sounds of inanimate objects crashing (sounded to me like the plastic advertisement signs that stores place out front were being clattered on the ground) and what I know to be the sound of flesh smacking flesh; I thought likely fists meeting faces.  Turns out I was hearing massage chairs being used as battering rams, someone's head being bashed against a cement pillar, and people being stabbed!  I thought about running up the stairs to see if I could help but then decided that it would be safer for me to just leave.  As I walked outside, I saw a fire truck pulling in and saw an EMT jogging across the parking lot.  I honestly just thought it was some young boys punching each other and throwing crap around.  I had no idea until I saw the news tonight how serious it was.  Thank God I didn't go up there and try to be a hero.