Mephistos

Preoccupied – Baby Issues

By Ray on April 6th, 2009

As most of the world knows, I am having a baby. Well, okay, specifically I am the Daddy part of having this baby, Nikki is the person actually having the baby. Just so everyone knows some details, the baby is due the first week or so of October. Nikki lives just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. And yeah, there are a LOT of things to figure out between now and then. As if all that was not enough to give a person enough to be concerned with and have a lot on the mind, add the following almost unbelievable situation on top of things.

A bit of background… Nikki works at a drugstore, usually on a closer shift. This drugstore is relatively knew in what seems to be a nice area that is also a largely new development. Granted, it is a bit close to an interstate exchange which may have played some part in the following tale. She works in the photo department, which is a straight few down the aisle to the pharmacy counter.

One day last week, Nikki was not feeling well and giving the state of being pregnant combined with not feeling well and being extremely dizzy she went to the Emergency Room. Really not much that the did, other than state the obvious: low blood sugar, high blood-pressure, and noting that it was not uncommon in a pregnancy to have such, but that it was a little on the extreme side. Since she was seeing the pregnancy Doctor the next day, they told her to just discuss those things at the appointment.

During that appointment the Doctor basically said it was extreme, she needed to eat more healthy (which I had been kind of telling her a bit of that before hand) – mainly less processed foods to cut down on the sodium intake especially. He thought that a huge part of the blood pressure was probably stress related and given the situation, work, and so on that is not very surprising. He told her to avoid stressful situations especially or she was going to end up on bed rest if she was not careful.

So that night, she went back into work. Sometime before closing there was commotion at the pharmacy counter and a guy bolted down a different aisle. Without seemingly thinking, Nikki ran to the aisle to confront the presumed customer. presumed customer however was in a hurry to get out the store and when he thought Nikki was blocking his way to the exit pulled a gun and pointed it into her face.

I am not sure of words that may have been exchanged, but I know in hindsight she was scared and I am sure extremely stressed. Shortly after all of this, come to find out the guy was robbing the pharmacy. I could almost see that as a desperate act given the economy – I said almost. But in actual fact did the guy ask for cash and run? No, he was just after drugs, specific ones apparently. Thank God no one as actually hurt or so it would seem at this point.

Now I got to say, I have been a victim of a couple of minor crimes in the past, once having had my billfold stolen out of my dorm room as I half woke up and my room-mate chased him down the hall, but none of that compares to the contempt I feel for the degenerate who did this and not only endangered Nikki, but unknown to him, the baby as well. At this point, they think the same fellow or group robbed a second store elsewhere, but they are still at large. I will be looking forward with a particular zeal to the capture and conviction of this criminal.