The time the hardware store "got held up" and I didn't have my carry gun

Hi folks, I just wanted to share this story because even though I didn't have my gun on me it still pertains to CCW and self defense.This happened several months ago during a wind-chapped winter morning at a Harbor Freight store in Washington. I had just put in my CPL application a couple days before. I was in the store, walking towards the checkout line with some tools for a weekend project when I noticed two males walk in wearing full facemasks, gloves, and hoodies. They walked in, did a shifty look around the store, and walked off briskly towards one of the aisles. My heart stopped and I went numb. I couldn't see any weapons but I knew they were going to try something. There are all kinds of valuable tools in stores like this, they were either going to rob it for cash or for equipment. Not to mention they could grab any variety of item off the wall to use as a weapon. Other shoppers in the store kind of did the same thing and watched them nervously as they walked around. I put my items on a shelf and walked out the door to my car, which luckily was near the entrance and I could see into the whole front area of the store. I sat in my car holding my phone in case I needed to dial 911, my heart pounding every bone in my body.After a long, prickly nervous moment I finally saw the two guys come back towards the register with something in their hands.With their masks off.It was two kids no older than 13 who had walked across the neighborhood in the bitter cold to get batteries for their XBOX controllers...They checked out, exited the store and put their masks and gloves back on as they past my car. I opened my door to head back into the store and said "Man, when you two came in the store like that I thought it was getting robbed!" Their eyes went wide for a second and then we all laughed at the whole thing. One of them said he was wondering why everybody was giving them weird looks!It taught me a huge lesson about mindset and jumping to conclusions. The moment I saw masks and gloves I just completely brain dumped the environmental situation- a cold windy winter morning- and my mind's "worst-case-scenario" instinct took charge. Thinking about it later, I also got some good insight on self awareness. Those kids probably had no idea that they looked like a threat, because THEY knew that they were just walking down for a quick purchase and that it was 20-something degrees out, but they didn't know what some moron like me might interpret them to be.All in all, I felt stupid afterwards, but I learned something and don't think I did anything wrong. via /r/CCW http://ift.tt/2tXOb0p