More on Yesterday's Hoax

So I was on my way to mail something to Social Security (an important form which cannot be done online, God knows why) when my kid texted me: Mom, there's an active shooter on campus.

Those of you who are parents will appreciate my terror. I was in traffic, driving toward the post office, and could not respond at once. I found a place to pull over and asked him where he was, where the shooter was, if he was safe.

He was locked down in the building he had been teaching in; the shooter was in the library (so we thought) which is close to where he was. But they were in a fifth floor room and there were no windows in the door. I told him to stay put. He made me promise not to come on campus.

I don't think I could have gotten near campus anyway, though at that point I was maybe half a mile away, parking in the parking lot of our recycling facility. I sat and panicked for about half an hour, hunting the internet for hints of what was happening. Police cars and fire engines sped past, lights but no sirens -- to keep from alarming the shooter, I surmised.

My kid was as scared as I was, and no one on FB or Reddit or the online news sites knew anything. Or rather, they all were posting a lot, none of it sensible. There was another shooter at the nearby Walmart; there was one in the parking garage by the Union; there was one in the art building. 

I finally went ahead and went home, where I watched about six live reports simultaneously and followed the Reddit thread that had reports from people on campus. A lot of wild rumors, and other people saying not to repeat wild rumors, that that caused panic. 

Eventually the Fayetteville police held a tiny press conference, a young corporal saying they had found no shooter, no shots had been fired, no one was injured. There had been about sixty calls, she said, but no confirmed sightings of a shooter and no one had actually heard any shooting. They had cleared the library and were clearing other buildings.

About half an hour after that, it was confirmed that there was no shooter.  It was a very mean hoax. Eventually my kid was allowed out of the building he was in and he walked home.

Dr. Skull slept through the whole thing. 

Then later that evening, I had to take Dr. Skull to the ER because his home health nurse and his PCP thought he might be having cardiac issues. (Spoilers: he was not.)

Today I am exhausted and having leftover traumatic twitching. Everything is fine, but tell that to my adrenal glands.

I did take the dog to the dog park this morning and let him run around with another border collie mix. That helped a little.