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(If you came searching for ALO's Barbeque, click the word. It's a good song, that's why I borrowed it's lyrics.)

Friday, December 10, 2010

"Why I'm not afraid."

Janet has a mild form of post traumatic stress disorder. Why goes back to her early days in the social welfare institute in China and is another post. Suffice it to say we often have to escort her upstairs to, say, get a brush or a nail file, if everybody else is downstairs. We have to sit with her while she takes a bath. If she sees one TV ad of a scary movie, she's camping out in Mom and Dad's room that night. Interestingly, her fears are focused on being inside, she has no fear of walking outside at night, or being out alone anywhere outside the house.


Tonight she walks up to me and explains she's not afraid anymore. I ask her why. In her best 11 year old girl voice she says, waving her hands for emphasis,

"Well, first of all, we don't live in a dangerous place."

I'm thinking, yeah, we don't live in the inner city, but she says:

"You know, like there aren't any dead people around who come back to life?"

Okay, yeah, she has a point.

"And, two, we have lots of houses around us, like a house on the left and one on the right and one behind us."

True.
 
"So that's safe. And three, you know how our house is, you know, like, ugly? So if anyone wanted to rob a house they'd go to the house on the left or the one on the right, or the one behind us."

Yeah, probably true, too.

2 comments:

  1. I employ the same logic with my personal vehicle. I only wash it on a quarterly basis, and it has no hubcaps. So, beyond being a near-ancient Japanese car, it's just plain ugly. I doubt, even in the worst neighborhoods, it would get stolen or robbed.

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