Stick 'em up!

Today was so weirdly random, I don't even know where to begin.

I am currently staying at my buddy Maureen's place in Edmonton because I am scheduled for laser surgery tomorrow at the Gimbel Eye Center. Today was my assessment day, so Maureen dropped me off at the clinic and I had my eyes poked and scanned for a couple hours. In the end I found out that I have asymmetrical corneas (there goes my eye model career!), which means I can't get the fancy instantaneous lasik surgery but must opt for PRK which is cheaper but with more recovery time. That's all fine with me because I still get to toss out my glasses at the end. After my appointment I hung around Kingsway Mall for a while and then decided to walk downtown because I was pretty wound up and excited about tomorrow. It's a decent walk, but it was so gorgeous out and I was in such a good mood I figured that if I tuckered out I could always call a cab or catch the bus. My eyes had been dilated for the assessment but my hat did a decent enough job of shading my eyes so off I went.

A couple of blocks down from the mall I came across a Royal Bank- I had intended on stopping there tomorrow morning to get a money order for the surgery since the eye people didn't take cheques (I suppose it is pretty hard to repossess freshly lasered corneas if your cheque bounces). I went in and since it was about 2:30 in the afternoon the place was pretty quiet, with only one person ahead of me. I chatted with the teller a bit and when her manager came over to authorize the money order we visited a bit too since she was also thinking about laser surgery and was wondering about costs and such. I glanced over to my left and two tellers over was a man wearing dark sunglasses and a white ball cap- I remember thinking that he was a bit of a tool for wearing is glasses indoors, and then thought that maybe he had his eyes dilated too, since the Gimbel clinic wasn't that far away. I finished my transaction and then went off to the side to try and cram all my stuff back in my purse in a way where the $3200 money order had no chance of falling out. As I headed for the door the manager was pulling the metal curtain across and dead-bolting the door. I asked if I was allowed to leave and she just said no and walked away. Turns out sunglasses man had handed the teller a note that said he wanted all the money in her drawer and to act normally (I learned this by eavesdropping on the bank employees because no one told the customers anything other than to sit in the waiting area). I never heard whether he claimed to have a weapon on him. The police showed up within 5 minutes and took statements from everyone and then I was allowed to leave. According to witnesses in the parking lot he took off on foot so I am guessing it was probably for drugs, if he didn't have enough money for a getaway car. All in all, probably not the most exciting bank robbery story you've ever heard, but I am pretty happy about that. Tomorrow: LASER EYES!