What’s more frightening than seeing a bunch of cops running in the same direction?

Seeing a bunch of cops conspicuously not running in the same direction.

There are some events I never want to witness as I'm waiting in line for my morning coffee. One is an adult wearing Winnie the Pooh clothing. Few things put me in a bad mood faster than adults who wear cutesy clothing inappropriate for anyone over the age of five. Another event I don’t want witness is every cop in the train station running past me toward the nearest exit, walkie-talkies crackling. Alarm bells!

But what’s worse than these two scenarios? Seeing every cop in a hundred-yard radius not running to the nearest exit, walkie-talkies crackling. This restrained-run shuffle is meant to get a person, in this case a police officer, to certain location as quickly as possible without alerting the general public that said officer needs to get somewhere urgently. It fails on both accounts. Shuffling is not the fastest way to get somewhere, running is; additionally, as soon as I see a cop shuffling I know shit is going down, something serious too. If it was just a fight happening or an unruly bum, the cops wouldn’t care if I knew or didn’t know. But knowing that the cop doesn’t want me to know what’s happening scares me.

I know this move. I’ve employed it myself when a new checkout line opens up. I run-shuffle towards it, hoping that others won’t notice the new line and try to cut in front of me as I’m cutting in front of hordes of other shoppers. When I see cops shuffling by me, I know they’re hiding something and it makes me anxious.

It’s almost enough to make me I want to stop one of the shuffling cops and ask, “Where are you not running off to?” but I don't want to get out of the coffee line. Some might say a thing scarier than seeing a bunch of cops not running in the same direction is seeing me in the AM if I haven’t had coffee.