I go to DeClemente’s for breakfast about once a week.  If you ask my girlfriend she’d say I’m there 7 days a week…  with NO PROOF she just assumes I’m there every day! [Note to DeClemente’s staff: when I bring my girlfriend for dinner, don’t everyone say in unison “MYLES!” She’ll give me the you’re fat because you don’t stay home and eat oatmeal look.]

Anyway… so I go in to enjoy a cup of coffee w/ eggs before work. I should mention a few facts

• Yesterday, 2 area businesses were robed at knife-point by a dude wearing a ski mask
• He robs unlikely establishments
  • Such as a tanning salon – we’re not talking about a genius here
• DeCelemente’s had 1 employee working breakfast: a cook / server
• There were no other customers at the moment
• I bust in like I own the place
• I am wearing a ski mask

Am I really that scary?

Now let me explain something, I do not normally walk around on 40 degree mornings wearing a ski mask. I have a cold so 1) breathing into the mask helps my dry throat, 2) the mask is built into my hat, and 3) it’s a stupid looking hat if you don’t use the mask.

Taken at DeClemente’s. Showing how hat looks stupid without mask

So I’m in DeClemente’s… I pause for a moment, deciding whether or not to eat-in and put my stuff down at a table. To the lone server/ cook, I was surveying for potential hostages.  I look up and notice her staring at me from the kitchen… frozen…. just staring at me. This reaction is not the normal “MYLES” I’m used to every morning… I mean once every week.  Something is up? “Wait”, I think to myself, “ARE WE BEING ROBBED RIGHT NOW?!”  I glance around- surveying for threats and / or hostages.

Suddenly I realize, I’M THE ROBBER. I stood there, hand frozen in my pocket (reaching for my wallet or knife, depending on who you ask). What felt like 15 min to my victim, this entire series of events took place in probably under 15 seconds. I take off my mask-hat.

“OH my GOD MYLES! I thought you were robbing me! You gave me a heart attack!” she said.

I ordered, sat down, and we laughed about it. She was quick to point out that “this would be a really bad place to rob… because of all the knives.”  She then threw invisible knives at me from the kitchen.

Myles Lasco

Myles started UrbanCorning.com and Facebook.com/UrbanCorning in 2008, and ran it until May of 2014. Myles moved to Tacoma, WA and his new website can be found at: www.tacomatose.com.