Safe and (Un)sound

At 55 years old, my oldest sister, S, is still ‘traffic-stopping hot’.  She’s a size 4, has Loni Anderson hair, looks fantastic in leather pants and rides her own Harley.  She is also hard-working, tenacious and very smart – having worked her way up from the secretarial pool to become the head of the IT department for a prestigious midwestern law firm – with no formal education beyond high school.  Let’s overlook for the moment her taste in men…

Even with so much going for her, she has a near-crippling fear that she’ll be murdered, raped, skinned alive or otherwise assaulted.  I didn’t realize how bad this was until we took a short trip together last year. 

Since i own nothing but shitmobiles, we agreed to take her car.  As we were leaving her house, she said “i just don’t feel safe.  do you mind if i bring my gun?” 

What? This mild-mannered woman, who lives in a safe, suburban neighborhood, has a ‘concealed carry’ permit?  First i’d heard of it…

i said “it really isn’t necessary, we’ll only be on the road a couple hours”

“yeah, but it’s dark, and we’re two women traveling alone…”

“i travel alone in strange cities all the time – never give it a second thought!  besides, it won’t be past 9 pm when we get there, and it’s interstate highway the whole way…”

i relented.  she returned from her bedroom carying a gun bigger than her head – a .457 magnum.  A Clint Eastwood-sized thug-eradication personal howitzer!

She wanted me to drive, since she was so nervous.  i was probably more nervous since she was wearing the damn thing in a shoulder holster under her jacket.   

But it wasn’t just the gun.  At one point, i had to slam on the brakes.  Out from under the drivers seat rolled a small baseball bat.  i assumed this was also for safety, since midget baseball wasn’t among her hobbies.

Somehow, we survived the weekend and headed for home – encountering nothing more life-threatening than fast food hamburgers.  As we approached her house, she needed to make a phone call, and asked to borrow my phone. 

I realized for the first time that she didn’t own a mobile phone.

“Wait a minute!  You’ve got a baseball bat under the seat, and are carrying enough firepower to overthrow a small country, but you don’t have a cell phone?  In a probable crisis – let’s say car trouble, an accident or even witnessing a bank robbery – which item do you think is most likely to keep you from harm?”

[sigh]

have i mentioned this tendency toward ‘one bad damn decision after another?’