[life] Not an Action Movie Star
I have little fantasies sometimes, the by-product of watching too many moves like Riddick or Die Hard, wherein some jerk tries to mug/assault/ask me the time and then I kick his ass all Jackie-Chan-style. Does everyone have these? Or someone breaks into the house or I see a beating in progress and I react all cool and collected and kick some ass all Jackie-Chan-style. I have detailed plans of how it would go if a home invasion happened - how I would throw my weight against the door and break their nose, and then run for the phone or the knives or, if I'm feeling like an especially unlikely fantasy, for the LotR reproduction sword that we have on display above the T.V. Yoooou! Shall! Not! Steal Our Shit!
And then something real happens that shows me how completely unprepared and stupid I would be if someone did try to do something nefarious to me. I would be the Victim. I would that girl who opened the door to strangers and didn't ask to see I.D. and then got raped and strangled with the cord of her own phone.
The doorbell rang just now, and then as I was going down the stairs, there was an impatient knocking on the door, just like my brother-in-law always does, and so I jerked open the door, a mild yet scathing speech about how it takes Time to Get Down the Stairs on my lips, to be confronted by two random guys, a bit skeezy looking, one with what appeared to be a can of oven cleaner(?) in his grasp. After a brief moment of uhhhh, my brain kicked into gear and I said, very intelligently, "yes?"
"Uh," said the one holding open the screendoor, eyeing me in my big fuzzy socks and Giant Grey Bathrobe, "does Mike live here?"
"Nope!" I said cheerily, and then shut the door, pondering how dumb I am.
No doubt they were just on their way to a party (BYO oven cleaner!) and got the house numbers wrong, and so on and so forth. But. I opened the door without even asking who was there. Or looking out the window. Or thinking at all. It's night. It's dark on my street. Not to put too fine a point on it, I am an unathletic lone female in a house with good soundproofing. Odds are against me being tomorrow's depressing headline, but I like to think that I'm smarter than I constantly find myself behaving.
Bleah.
And then something real happens that shows me how completely unprepared and stupid I would be if someone did try to do something nefarious to me. I would be the Victim. I would that girl who opened the door to strangers and didn't ask to see I.D. and then got raped and strangled with the cord of her own phone.
The doorbell rang just now, and then as I was going down the stairs, there was an impatient knocking on the door, just like my brother-in-law always does, and so I jerked open the door, a mild yet scathing speech about how it takes Time to Get Down the Stairs on my lips, to be confronted by two random guys, a bit skeezy looking, one with what appeared to be a can of oven cleaner(?) in his grasp. After a brief moment of uhhhh, my brain kicked into gear and I said, very intelligently, "yes?"
"Uh," said the one holding open the screendoor, eyeing me in my big fuzzy socks and Giant Grey Bathrobe, "does Mike live here?"
"Nope!" I said cheerily, and then shut the door, pondering how dumb I am.
No doubt they were just on their way to a party (BYO oven cleaner!) and got the house numbers wrong, and so on and so forth. But. I opened the door without even asking who was there. Or looking out the window. Or thinking at all. It's night. It's dark on my street. Not to put too fine a point on it, I am an unathletic lone female in a house with good soundproofing. Odds are against me being tomorrow's depressing headline, but I like to think that I'm smarter than I constantly find myself behaving.
Bleah.
posted by Karla Andrich at
7:22 PM
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