Santa almost came early!

So here I am at my early morning gruntwork job this morning...  I'm going about my duties when a clamor arises at the front counter... I hear many voices simultaneously calling out my name with a twinge of panic in their tone...  I get to the counter and they tell me "there's a gun in the men's room!"

And I'm like "And???"

One of the regular customers says "Yeah, I just saw it in there and thought you ought to know."  My early-20s aged coworkers were fully freaked.  Like there was a rabid hyena in there or something.  Holy craparoni, people!  It's just a gun.  Without an accompanying bad-intentioned psycho to go with it, a whole lot of nothing is going to happen!

So the customer and I and a couple curious coworkers head to the men's room, where I find a .45 Ruger P-90 sitting atop the toilet paper dispenser.  Let's not freak out, people.  See all the guys getting breakfast, wearing their camo's?  It is still hunting season (for those goobers who haven't filled their tags yet, at least) and I betcha one of them came in and took a dump.  Not wanting his sidearm to plop in the toilet he set it here and absentmindedly left me a gift walked away without it.  Now normally I would have some choice words for anybody that careless with his guns, but I think the humiliation of having to walk up to the counter and say "you aren't going to believe this, but I think I left my like-new .45 in the bathroom.  Has anybody put one in the lost-n-found today?" would be punishment enough. 

Anyway, I drop the magazine and make the gun safe.  I take it back to the office where the manager chickypoo says "put it in a bag so I don't have to look at it!" which I do, with the obligatory eyeroll.  She then calls the local PD.  Seems hasty to me, but probably the smart thing to do, actually.  I think to myself "I should lock the slide open so the arriving officer can see that it is empty."  The click of me engaging the slide stop sends her into a conniption.  "You just scared the @#*(&$^* outta me!"

Wow.

So local PD officer arrives.  I told him where I found it and that I was the one who made it safe and brought it back to the office.  He took my name and contact info and asked for a copy of the surveillance footage but nobody present knew how to do that.  I imagine he'll be back later for that.  I didn't want to just leave the gun there, nor did I want to make a big production out of keeping everybody out of the bathroom 'til the police arrived.  I think I handled the situation properly...  But... Right about now I'm really starting to hope that this gun wasn't used in a crime and now has my prints all over it. 

POSTSCRIPT:  It saddens me to see young people so freaked out by the mere presence of an unattended gun.  This is Oregon.  Redneck gun land, or so I'd thought.  Looks like we have some serious educating to do if we want our guns rights to be cherished and preserved by the next generation.

POST-POSTSCRIPT:  If the blog goes silent for 25-to-life, then I'll see ya at the parole hearing!  :)

POST-POST-POSTSCRIPT:  Maybe nobody will claim it and they'll give it to me!  Wooo!