Baby On Board

No, this is not my strange way of announcing to the blog world that we're expecting. It's just that I was driving to work the other day and I saw a little 4-door sedan drive past with one of those yellow "Baby On Board" signs hanging proudly in the back window. At first it seemed like a flash-back to the 90's because I don't think I've seen one of those in a while. But maybe I haven't been paying attention and those things are still cool. Wait, were those things ever cool? (My apologies to any of you sign hangers out there who may be reading this.) Even in the 90's when those things were everywhere, I remember thinking to myself that I would never hang one of those in my car window because I feel like it makes me more likely to be the victim of a car-jacking. My thought process was that if they know there's a baby "on board" they may want to steal the car, and the baby, in order to try for some ransom money. (I know, I'm really morbid, but this is how I think.) I certainly don't want anyone holding my baby for ransom, and once the car-jacker discovered how much is in our bank account they would probably just return the car and the baby and maybe bring us dinner. But, on the flip side, maybe it makes you less likely to be car-jacked. Probably they just want the car, right? They don't want a baby crying in the back seat while they're trying to be on the run or come up with a master plan for their life of mischief.

Most likely, I'll never be the victim of a car-jacking, but I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about worst-case scenarios and what my best plan of action would be should I ever end up in one. For instance, I have this fear that when I'm sitting on the passenger side of the car and Krister is outside gassing it up, someone is going to run over, jump in the car and drive off with me still inside. (I'm guessing ending up with me in the car would be even worse for a thief than having to listen to a crying baby.) I try to think of the swiftest thing I could do to get to safety. If I were really fast and James Bond-like, I would reach over and pull the key from the ignition in one swift move and then hurl the keys across the parking lot. This would buy me time to at least get out of the car, and it's a good idea to get the keys away from yourself rather than hanging on to them because you don't want to get attacked for the keys.

Or what if you're walking along a crowded street and someone comes up behind you with a gun and tries to force you to walk somewhere with them? According to my dad, the best thing to do in this situation is to pretend to faint and just collapse to the ground. This is a good move for a couple of reasons. First, it comes as a total surprise to the gunman, really catches him off guard (or her, I guess, though what are the chances?) Second, it kind of ends the conflict before it ever begins. No one is going to then shoot the person who's lying on the ground passed out. And they can't just try to drag you along behind them as dead weight because that would draw all sorts of attention. See what a great plan this is? I remember my dad telling me about this tactic one day just in case it ever happened to me. Hmmm... maybe I come by this morbidity thing honestly...

Also when I'm in a room I often mentally rehearse the best escape route in case an attacker comes in. (I promise I don't feel like the world is crawling with terrible people who are out to get me!) It's always smart to go somewhere with a window. There's a window in our bedroom closet (weird, I know) and I love it because if someone broke into the house we could shut ourselves in the closet and just climb out the window. This would also be handy in case of a fire. I guess if I'm going to worry about escaping, I should probably devote more time to worrying about getting out of burning buildings, as I'm sure that's more likely than having an intruder in the house. But, then again, if you only go by what you hear on the local news, you would think that there's a pretty even chance of either situation happening and that there's a pretty darn good chance it's going to happen to you next. It's probably not even healthy for someone with my imagination to be watching the news at all. Especially once I have a baby on board...