My husband and I drove to SF after I got off work yesterday to deliver Christmas presents to our older son, since we’re traveling next week and he’s traveling the following two weeks. We spent a couple of hours together, including dinner at a local pub while we cheered the Patriots to a win. Our son’s home TV setup is nicer, but he hosted a Christmas party for his friends group the night before and still had a fair bit of cleaning to do, not least because one of the guests brought those little things that explode into tiny pieces of paper when you throw them onto the floor. Apparently the Roomba is not great with that sort of thing, so sweeping was on the agenda.

We left around 9:30, and I was designated driver. The apartment is about three blocks from the freeway entrance, and we were waiting at the stoplight, with the on-ramp for 101N beckoning on the other side of an empty cross street, when we heard a terrifyingly loud pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, closely spaced but slightly irregular, 20-30 pops in all. The sounds seemed to be crossing the street behind us, and were, again, amazingly loud.

It was not those little things that explode when you throw them on the floor.

I was at the front of the line in my lane, and I could have just driven, but I didn’t. I remember even flinching, and neither of us ducked or moved in any way. It was over quickly, perhaps 20 seconds. The cars on either side of us also did not advance, and the cars behind were obviously blocked. Afterward, I intelligently commented that it couldn’t have been gunfire because no one moved, but what the heck was it? My husband opined that it was definitely gunfire. The light changed and we drove home.

My phone was on low battery and I had it in airplane mode for the drive, so it wasn’t until we reached SC around 11:00 that I got the message from our son wondering whether we had heard the shots. He had access to a local incidents app and the shooting, for so it was, occurred between two men, both of whom survived but were hospitalized.

So many thoughts.

As we approached the intersection, we must have driven right between the two shooters on opposite sides of the street. What if they had started shooting five seconds earlier? My husband felt they were likely waiting for the cars to clear in order to get a good shot. I guess I should be happy they were out to shoot each other instead of cars that day.

Even though I’ve been to the gun range more than once, the loudness of the reports shocked me. I hadn’t thought of that aspect of our school and mall and club shootings, what must be the complete terror of being in an enclosed space with the deafening noise, on top of the fear of the danger of injury or death.

Why didn’t any I react to the shots by driving away? Cars are little protection from gunfire, and we were all within easy range. Shouldn’t my impulse have been escape rather than freeze? Or at least hide, not that it would have helped? I do have a history of freezing in emergencies, but it didn’t feel like one at the time. Maybe my own reaction was related to my denial, but what about my husband’s, or the other drivers’?

We’re very familiar with the neighborhood. We were next to a Costco and a block or two from Bed Bath and Beyond and Trader Joe’s, all of which we have visited, in some instances on foot. Earlier we had walked to a pub about six blocks away. It almost felt like a shooting in our neighborhood–which of course it was for our son.

Speaking of whom, he’s thinking about moving out of SoMa. Maybe he should…though life is not secure, and nothing on this earth is sure.