Wednesday, March 11, 2009

San Francisco is just different


It's 4 a.m. Someone you do not know walks into your home and into the can.

What do you do?

Well, if you're a techie guru like Dave Prager and you live in San Francisco, that could be the subject of much debate and hand-wringing. All of it online, naturellement.

NO, REALLY. It must be true, it's in the Telegraph over yonder in London:
Mr. Prager, an online technology writer and web video star for internet television station Revision3, immediately posted the event onto social website Twitter.

“Maybe I should lock my door - I swear a random dude just walked into my bathroom and I can't believe I haven't freaked out.” He continued to post updates as he wondered how to react.

“I can't believe I'm tweeting about it while he is still in there.”

Mr Prager then took advice from online followers on what to do about the man in his bathroom, who he described as a combination of “hobo and drunk and sleepwalking dude.”

“Should I call the cops like you guys have recommended? Find a blunt object before opening the door? My gut tells me he's harmless."
UNBELIEVABLE. Considering that San Francisco is, well, San Francisco, you wonder whether folks there have gotten too "progressive, hip, happening, open-minded and now" to retain the instinct for self-preservation.

I wonder if the Romans had this debate when Attila the Hun was on the march? Luckily for Prager, the guy did turn out to be a more-or-less harmless, passed-out drunk. Blessedly unarmed, as Mr. Tech showed him the door.

Live on the web cam. Of course.

NOW, I WONDER how this might have played out, say, in Tejas?
Billy Bob Eustis, an oil-refinery pipefitter and deacon at the First Baptist Church of Sabine Pass, immediately interrupted his Twitter updates to sping into action.

“DAMN!" he wrote before leaving the computer. "Left the damn door unlocked. Some sumbitch done walked into the crapper. Hang on.”

The microphone in his computer's webcam streamed the sounds of gunshots to startled Internet viewers.

Mr. Eustis, back at the keyboard after a few minutes, assured his Twitter followers all was well.

"That ol' boy ain't gonna do no more home invading," he tweeted, to use the lingo of the American microblogging service. "Called T-John over at the sheriff's department. They coming right over. I'll never get that damn bathroom cleaned up. Gotta go."

Jefferson County authorities ruled the incident justifiable homicide, citing Texas' "shoot the burglar" law. Mr. Eustis, after taking a couple of days off from the refinery to clean up his damn bathroom, will receive Port Arthur's first-annual Don't Mess With Texas award in a city hall ceremony.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: In which community is sanity closer to holding sway?

No comments: