Tram stop incident

It happened when I was twenty. I was sitting on a tram stop and reading "The Book of Lies Trilogy" from Ágota Kristóf when I was inquired for spare change by three boys, who suddenly appeared next to me. Quick analysis of the situation showed me that I was sitting far from the other passengers, who were standing closer to the rails, which left me alone with the money-seeking bunch.

"What are you reading?" one boy asked. He seemed like their leader.

"A book about war," I replied.

(Thinking about it later, I thought that I could have said something like, "A book about a man who sits on tram stops and pretends to read books to get approached by troublemakers to get into a fight with them," but that would probably end up even worse.)

"Ah, cool. Do you have money?"

His straightforward question got me curious. A similar situation happened to me back in high school when me and my friend were stopped by two hooligans and they asked the same question. They might have started with a golden opener, "Do you have a watch?"/never about the time itself, but they immediately followed with the financial aspect of our encounter. We were stalling with my friend and it got one of the guys restless, so he started walking back and forth and repeating, "I need to pee so hard," which I interpreted as a threat of urinating on us, which would be too much for me. I had my jeans back pocket full of coins and I took them all out on my palm and asked, "How much do you need?" I remember being curious if he was going to grab all of them, but he took the exact amount he asked about.

And so I did the same thing now, but the boy replied greedily, "All of it." After snatching a handful of coins, he looked at me and asked, "Do you have a phone?"

"What?" I asked a bit stunned with boldness of his request.

"I said do you have a fucking phone," the boy replied angrily, posing for a tough guy.

I re-assessed my situation and I realised that my shoelaces are not not tied. Inspired by my girlfriend at the time, as well as the following discovery that it's very comfortable for my ankles, I just ceased to do it. And now I found myself in a situation when neither running nor fighting was a doable option. And all while the boy was looking at me, awaiting for my response.

I scoffed and stood up and joined the group of people, who didn't seem to notice anything, and I waited for my tram there. My reaction left the boys just as stunned as me a moment ago, and so they stayed on the bench even when the tram came and I got in. I looked at them, sitting and looking at me speechless as I was departing. Did I seem an easier target? Did they think they had it under control when I was simply charting the waters? I'll never know. I never saw them again.

However, after that incident as well as another one around the same time, I started tying my shoelaces again. Strangely enough, it was not needed any more because I never got into a similar situation. I shortly returned to this habit when I got my first car 7 years later because driving was more convenient, but I don't remember how and when I finally abandoned it for good.