On a rainy afternoon, we, Stephanie, Maggie and I pulled up into the parking lot of a pizza shop on Farmington Avenue in hopes of an interview. Walking in, we ask for the owner of the establishment. Upon realizing that the person at the front of the small store was the owner, we asked if we could get an interview. He looked disheveled, and asked us again what we wanted. Again explaining that we had come to his store before looking for an interview time that best fit his schedule, he said that he was waiting on the police. His delivery driver had apparently been robbed earlier that day. He sounded frustrated saying he had been waiting for over 30 minutes. After figuring out this meant that we wouldn’t be getting an interview we asked if there would be a better time. The owner was vague and we figured we wouldn’t be able to get an answer, and so we said our thanks and left the store. After leaving, we talked about the absurdity of someone getting “robbed” in broad daylight, in the middle of the day. My thoughts wandered to the owner. ‘What is he thinking’ I thought. ‘How often does this happen?’ I wondered how the owner could trust this city.

While lost in my thoughts, we had walked down the street to a supermarket. I quickly caught up with Stephanie and Maggie and squabbled over, who should ask to talk to the owner. As the only guy, I lost and made my way to the counter. The owner was at the counter and unfortunately did not look too pleased with our presence. We didn’t exactly look like the type of people to buy anything from his store. I asked if he could spare some time and perhaps give us an interview for our research. He looked uninterested and said that he was busy.  I didn’t push it. I looked back and gave the “thumbs down” and we left. I thought about the owner of this market and whether an empty store made him nervous or worried that he wouldn’t make rent or something like that. We got back to the car and as we were slowing down next to the Aetna building, a cop car sped past us.