To tell you the truth the closest I've come to being mugged was in North Beach. I was living in an apartment there and it was always hard to find parking in the neighborhood so I would drive around until I found a place. This one night I got back kinda late and I ended up parking about five blocks away from my apartment. It must have been about 1 am. Maybe a little later on a weeknight in summer. I left my car and when I turned the corner I was on this dimly lit street and there was nobody else there as far as I could tell at first. As I headed down the street I noticed this guy leaning against a blacked out lamppost across the street. And just as I reached that point in the street he started to cross towards me.
I gave him a look. He had his hood up over his head and a dead stare and right then my stomach dropped out. And that was when I noticed another guy crossing ahead of me. Needless to say I thought I was toast, except that just then the door to one of the Victorians opened up and there were these two frat guys standing there. "Hey guys," I yelled up, my survival instinct kicking into full gear. And I ran up the stairs to them and they took one look at me and said "Are you okay," because they could see the look of pure terror on my face.
The creepy guys had already cleared out of there by then and the frat guys were nice enough to walk me home later. Which I told them I didn't need them to do, but we all knew I did. The next day I shelled out the fortune that it cost me to get a parking space under my apartment and then moved back to Berkeley at the end of the summer. (Strangely, I never really had much of problem in terms of feeling unsafe in Berkeley, but then again I was usely out in groups when I was there.)
