Last week’s news: “As pro- and anti-Mubarak protesters clash in the streets outside, Ms. Thornberry is stuck inside her apartment with only, she told Williams, a walking stick, a rolling pin, and a sharp knife to protect herself. She says that men have been periodically pounding on her door and trying to break it down. She sounds remarkably calm. Again, all this is according to NBC national news. ”  www.fwweekly.com

Ya gotta love it.  Chaos all around her, and this feisty old gal, a lifelong Egypto-phile,  is stuck in the middle with her rolling pin, walking stick and sharp knife, which she later admitted was not a knife with which you cut butter.  I’ll bet she knew how to use it too.  Can you say “I’ve studied all about the Middle East.  I know how to decapitate…”   Later she also said she had hot boiling water going on the stove just in case.

I have delusions of grandeur sometimes and one of those is about how I would handle an attack upon my person.   My sons are in the wings to tell you the truth – I would do exactly what I do when they jump out behind a door to watch me totally freak out.  I would jump, scream out and freeze. That’s not what I rehearse in my head, though.

In my head I’m swinging walking canes, wielding knives in a diagonal slash and burn pattern, and flinging boiling hot water in faces, all while yelling “I raised three sons you, bastard!  You don’t scare me!  You want to mess with me, go ahead, and say your prayers!  I’ve flattened pie dough with this rolling pin and I’ll do the same to you!”

Or,  let’s say I’m being carjacked like in the hilarious movie “Bandits” in which Billy Bob Thornton tries that on a woman who has found out her husband is cheating on her.  I would tear at top speed through city streets, barely missing buses and pedestrians and head-on collisions, not caring whether I live or die, until the “bad guy” is begging for mercy and only hoping to get out of the car alive, the weenie.

Then there’s my favorite, I’ve probably mentioned her before: Venus Ramey, Miss America 1944, who in 2007 heard her dog barking on her farm in Kentucky, and at age 82 grabbed her snub nosed .38 and shot out the tires of the guys who were trying to steal stuff from her barn.  The news reports said she had to balance on her walker!  This image never fails to make me smile real big. I’ve never taught my patients to balance on their walker while shooting a gun, but perhaps that’s the kind of “functional goals” Medicare is always talking about.  She was the first red-haired Miss America.  Go figure.

I don’t know where I get this idea that all anger I have ever repressed in my life would come out on some poor ne’er do well. God knows I’m not actually one to repress my anger – very unhealthy, doncha know.  My Grandma, who said the Rosary every day, would not have taken lightly to hormonal young men pounding on her apartment door; my Mom, who is generally a scaredy-cat like me,  last summer stood up to a couple of door-to-door scammers who approached her in her driveway and promptly called the police after they took off when they realized this diminutive octogenarian was not falling for their ma’am this and ma’am that and in no uncertain tone of voice told them the conversation was over.  I guess it’s in my genes.  I have no idea what I’d actually do in a scary situation.  I don’t like to think I’d just lay down and die.  I like to think I’d go down fighting.  I just don’t know.

Years ago Mom gave me a tape of an Oprah show on safety.  One thing that has always stuck with me is that if someone wants you to “get in the car” your chances are much better if you take a stand right then and there.  Don’t get into the car.   History is full of dead people who thought if they just cooperated they would maybe be spared, and ended up in a shallow grave somewhere.  I tell you what, that is advice I WILL follow.   A nice firm “eff you, kill me now #&$&@)(^!*” are not exactly what I would like my last words on this earth to be, but I’ve been rehearsing them just in case.  That’s called courage against evil.  I’d like to think I have it.

And once again,  my favorite quotation ever from the lovely red-headed Venus Ramey at age 82:  “I didn’t even think twice. I just went and did it,” she said. “If they’d even dared come close to me, they’d be 6 feet under by now.” Just kidding, that wasn’t my favorite, although she did say that.  It’s this:

“I’m trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another,” she said.  I hope when I’m an old woman I can just do the quiet, peaceful life and stay out of the trouble part, but just in case, I’ve got my kitchen utensils handy.