Unfiltered Story #96641

I’m at a pizza place eating a late dinner with a friend. There’s one, maybe two other tables with customers in the place at the same time as us. I’m facing the entrance, he is not.

I see two men walk in with large coats on and bandanas over their faces. They walk over to the cash register, get the manager’s attention who’s cleaning something, and the manager looks at them, looks at something one of them shows him inside his coat, and the manager’s shoulders drop in an “of course this would happen today” sort of way.

At first I’m not believing what I’m seeing, but I can’t come up with any other explanation for it. My friend keeps talking as he has no idea anything is going on; I decide it’s best to not tell him lest he react in a way that calls attention to us.

One guy is watching the manager, the other guy is glancing around the restaurant, keeping an eye on us customers. But he lets his attention get focused on the cash register for a long enough moment and I seize the opportunity.

I jump up and lunge towards the two men, grabbing a full shaker of parmesan cheese from the salad bar as I pass it. I throw the shaker at the first guy’s head as hard as I can and my aim is spot on. It stuns him long enough for me to tackle the second guy who I’m sure has a gun, which I do by jumping on his back with my arm around his neck, then I kick the counter to make us both fall backwards. The manager has already dove out of the way by this point. I’m struggling with the first guy and the second guy has already started to bolt for the door, shouting something to his accomplice like, “get the f*** out of here!” At this point one of the cooks from the back, my friend, and another customer are helping me pin the thief, and the manager is calling the police.

Once the police arrive and they take over, everyone starts clapping for me, calling me a “hero.” I thanked them, said it was nothing, and then said a couple words about gay rights and how your genitalia don’t determine your gender, and everyone clapped and cheered louder.

Then I blinked and watched the two thieves walk out the front door of the restaurant as my friend kept telling me his story, and I did my best to act inconspicuous as I listened to him. The manager immediately went for the phone and after a couple seconds I interrupted my friend and told him what happened. He didn’t believe me at first but then saw the commotion around us. The police showed up within minutes and I gave my statement, and then we left. We still had to pay for our pizza.