Out Arizona Way

[ezdays]

This is from an article I wrote about eight years ago, with an added update:

Routines

We are all creatures of habits. I’ve always been an early riser and fortunately, my wife had no problem conforming. One little pleasure we still have in our retirement is to eat breakfast out. This is a carryover from our days when we worked in our business together and sometimes went to work well before breakfast and took a break around six to go eat. When we retired, nothing changed; up around four, out to breakfast by six. We might hit a local place or a Denny’s, but one of our favorite places to go to a few times a week is the “Desert Palms.” It’s about three miles from the house, but we like it because it opens early, the food is good and the prices are reasonable. Like at most restaurants, we find a number of regulars there, including one couple that shows up for three meals a day on most days. Boy, and we thought that we didn’t like to cook. Anyway, all of our routines were broken the other day when we got there at our usual time but couldn’t get into the parking lot. There were police cars blocking every entrance with police tape surrounding the area. We had no idea what was going on; we could see a fire truck and an ambulance so we thought perhaps there was an accident or a fire, but we really couldn’t stop to ask anyone even though we were concerned. Come noon and we were glued to the news, and sure enough, there it was; they had been robbed just minutes before we got there. It seems like a couple of men hid behind an outside wall waiting for the cook to show up. Armed with a gun and a crowbar, they herded him and a waitress into the office in hopes of getting into the safe. Neither one had the combination; so all they got was what was in the cash drawer and what these two employees had in their pockets including their cell phones. The robbers fled on foot, and still haven’t been caught.

Now, as disruptive as it was to us, can you imagine what these two went through? Let’s start with the cook; he had to endure having a gun pressed to his head while they tried to get the waitress to open the safe. This man works hard for his money, and unfortunately, they took some $800 cash he had on him to pay his house rent. Both have had to be traumatized wondering just how dangerous these guys were and what they’d do if they didn’t get what they wanted. We went there the next morning and I could still see the terror in that waitress’ eyes. She worked a few more days and after some time off, changed her routine and shift. The employees no longer enter in the side of the building and there’s a different atmosphere there that you can sense. Things have changed for everyone involved. There’s the waitress that should have opened up that day but didn’t because of a medical issue. She has to feel a bit uneasy knowing that someone else took her place. She wasn’t even there, but she is still a victim. The owners were violated, even though they weren’t there either. I don’t think these people will forget what happened that morning; the feeling of distrust of the most innocent things will linger with them for a long time.

You may wonder why I’m dedicating a whole article about this, but to know that we came close to encountering a robbery is a bit unnerving. You also need to know that it’s people like these robbers that, knowingly or not, really spoil people’s routines, possibly for the rest of their lives. Long after these robbers spend their ill-gotten gains, we have those that are now afraid of every dark corner or every stranger that approaches them, and that’s not fair. I know, life’s not fair, but these guys need to be found and have their routines changed as well.

Just as a follow-up, the Desert Palms closed a few months after I wrote this article. Did this robbery have anything to do with this? We can't be sure, but one thing is certain, a lot more people's routines were spoiled when they did close, including ours.