Sometimes we just have to talk about things we would rather not. Today is one of those days. I often hear about people who are the victims of angry people while in their cars. That to me is unthinkable. Why would someone not be able to control themselves in their cars? Why should we feel fear traveling down the road on our daily routine or even out for a quick trip to see the relatives a few counties over?
I hear of people being forced off of the road or blocked in a parking spot while some knuckle dragging moron come over to their driver window to scream, whine, slobber, and just generally fall all to pieces because you beat them to the parking spot they saw three aisles over driving by. While I admit I hate to lose a good parking spot I don’t believe that it is a thing to come to fisticuffs over by any means.
I heard this lady the other day, while standing in line to pay for my groceries, telling the cashier about being at a red-light the other day when she saw a man looking strangely at her from the curb. For some reason he seemed to keep his gaze directly at her sitting in her car with the window down, soaking in some of the lovely weather we have had lately, she looked away a moment because he was making her so uncomfortable the way he was staring at her, and when she looked back he was halfway to her car in a full run. She said I don’t know how I thought to roll the window up, but up it went and he got there just before it was totally closed.
The next thing she said made me shiver. She said that he grabbed the door handle and begin to jerk on it trying to open the door. She said he just pulled and pulled cussing all the time. She said she was absolutely scared out of her wits. She said the light had not turned green yet so she had to set there and let this go on until some people in the cars behind her begin to blow their horns and that seemed to make this guy stop with whatever he had in mind.
I couldn’t stand anymore; I asked her if she knew this guy? She said she didn’t, and then she said something that was absolutely against anything I would have thought about a situation like that. She said I was so scared I don’t even remember what he looked like! Now if that was me I think I would have his face burned into my memory until the day I die, but I have never been in that type of situation so I’m not sure what it would be like.
I then asked the most stupid question I could ever imagine anyone asking. What do you think he wanted? Then all of the answers to this question flooded my mind and I was immediately embarrassed. Kill me? Rob me? Take my car? Take me? The further it went the worse it got. Thankfully she wasn’t as upset about it as I was. She just looked at me and said I don’t know.
She continued. I just know that I wasn’t ready for something like this to happen. I have never made a plan for something like this to take place in my life. It always happens to someone else, not me. I did nothing to provoke this attack and now I am physically ill when I have to get in my car and go somewhere. I haven’t slept hardly at all since this happened thinking about how easily I could be dead right now, or in the hospital, or even just missing and not knowing where I am nor if anyone is looking for me.
My heart melted as I listened to these words come from her mouth. This is the very reason I went into this type of business, to try to prevent people from having the very hurt I was listening to coming from this lady I had never met before. I gave her my card and explained who I was and told her I would like to help her if I could. I was checking out by this time so we continued our conversation at the door leading to the parking lot. I told her of a few items that are on my website that would be very effective in the car should trouble ever present itself this way again to her in the future.
I suggested these items to her. The Visor-Clip Pepper Spray. This is a good quality pepper spray that is held in place on your sun visor by a plastic clip that will cause an immediate reaction to an attacker when shot into the face upon his approach to the car. One other option I suggested was mini form of a stun baton with a flashlight that will deliver an electric shock of 15 million volts. That is what is in my car. Then I told her of the full-sized stun baton. It also has a blinding flashlight, but it carries a 20-million-volt charge of electric knock you on your face stun capability. Also, at over 14 inches and made from aircraft grade aluminum it’s make a great club.
We parted in the parking lot with a quick hug and headed home. That evening I saw where Someone had purchased a visor-clip pepper spray and one of the full-sized stun batons here in town. I smiled as I figured she was now ready to get back out and drive her car, but at the same time I pondered the idea of how much pain her life would have been spared if she had made those purchases before rather than after that terrible day.