Should have gone to the gym instead?

Well I've learned my lesson in my safe little town of Edmonds. I decided to go for a walk/run (let's face it, more of a walk than a run, but I can almost walk faster than I can run anyway) around my neighborhood tonight.

It's so nice out, and I love the summer here, so it seemed a shame to waste a beautiful evening inside at the gym. On my second loop, over near the hospital (thank goodness the ER would have been 10 steps away), a kid comes out of the bushes with a machete. He just looks at me, and starts walking down the sidewalk behind me. He wasn't a huge kid, but it was a bigass freakin' knife, and all I've got on me is my ipod and my house keys.

I wanted to start running, but for whatever reason, didn't want him to think that I thought he was some kind of psycho freak coming after me. Why I was worried about the machete-weilding teenager I don't know, but instead of running I just walked really fast. And a little while later he went back into the bushes.

Several questions come to mind:

Where did that kid get a knife, and what's he doing with it in the bushes in Edmonds? I mean, this isn't exactly a rural town where maybe he had some legitmate business with a machete on his property. Actually, he's not even old enough to have any property.

So, where are his parents? They should probably know their machete is missing.

What the hell was I thinking that I didn't want to hurt his feelings by running from the machete?

How much good would a pair of house keys do in an emergency? I mean I think I read somewhere that you can potentially gouge someone's eyes out with them or something if you hold them between your knuckles or whatever. But I probably would have been too busy running from the teenage machete.

Goodness, best just go to the gym, even in Edmonds.