Okay, the title doesn't make sense to you yet, I'm sure, but bear with me 'cause I'm going to explain it as quickly as possible because I have German/French/Linguistics homework to do. So, the story goes like this: I drive the van to campus on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because that's when I have to leave campus in the middle of the day to go to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods to teach French. I tend to drop the car off after class and walk back to campus for the rest of my day, so essentially, I spend a lot of time walking along 6th and 7th streets to and from campus throughout the week. I have a really crazy schedule and come winter time, I'll not only be getting home after dark but I'll be walking to campus in the dark. I'm pretty used to this. Most of the streets are well-lit, and they're traveled well enough to where I feel pretty safe. That's all dandy.
Now, I'm not saying that I don't think about things like being mugged or attacked or shot at or raped or maced or run over by a car or stabbed or hit by a bike or train or falling streetlamp or tree limb or … Yeah, I think about this stuff, clearly. Thinking about it is all part of staying safe. I always walk with my keys in my hand as well to use as a stabbing/scratching weapon should someone decide to mess with me. No one ever has, and I'm not saying that it's not a possibility, but my track record for safe trips home speaks for itself, I guess.
Which brings us to tonight. I just got out of my LLL 600 seminar class where we learned about the effects of the Industrial Revolution on Paris and how this affected literature and the way people became less social all-around, and I was walking home along 7th St. I pass by the post office, an elementary school, my bank, some restaurants, a hair salon, and the next store along my path is a new skateboarding store called "Indy Skates." A group of high schoolers were pulling their bikes out of a pile in front of it as I passed, and as one very large-haired boy hopped on his bike and zoomed past me, he said to me, "You should get a car or someone might try to rape you."
Now, at first, I had difficulty in understanding what it was exactly that he'd said, but after a minute as I walked past the florist's and the Vigo County Library, I realized what he said and how interesting it was that he'd said it. I mean, I'd like to think that we could live in a society where a woman shouldn't have to worry about walking alone in the early evening, worrying about being mugged or raped or killed, but we don't live in that society. We're so aware of the fact that we don't live in an ideal society that even at fifteen, this kid understands that and thinks about it enough to say something to a passing college kid on her way home. It's kind of sad, really, but that's how it is.
And as I was passing the pizza place, turning to get to Center St., the other part of his message hit me: He sounds like my mom. Since when did fifteen-year-old boys start sounding like fifty-year-old mothers? I mean, this kid had crazy hair, baggy clothes, huge sneakers, and piercings, and yet he's giving me the exact same message that my mom would. I thought that society was screwy before because it's dangerous to walk in the dark, but now I know there's something psychotic going on when a fifteen-year-old is giving a twenty-four-year-old advice on public safety! How crazy is that? Though, I'll give the kid props: he's thinking, and so long as he keeps thinking, he should turn out all right. Go you, anonymous punk.
Posted: September 14, 2004 at eight at night.