Be Alert in Parking Lots. Don’t Talk to Strangers.
In all this “being careful”, are we losing some of our humanity?
The Half-Full Water Bottle
I land in Iceland at Keflavik around 4:30 AM local time, having departed Boston at 7 PM local the previous day. It’s actually only a five-hour flight, but the four-hour time difference adds to the sleepy red-eye feeling.
The thing that quickly gets rid of the sleepy red-eye feeling is stepping off the plane and into the airport. I mean, I AM IN ICELAND. And just that fact alone is enough to wake me up.
The airport is pretty empty at 4:30 AM and so I quickly pass through customs and pick up the large backpack I checked. I purchased a bottle of water in Logan Airport before departing Boston, so I shove the now half-full bottle into one of the side pockets of my backpack.
I have a rental car reserved and need to figure out where Enterprise is located. I walk over to the left of the exit doors, where there’s a Hertz counter and some other rental companies. Alas, no Enterprise. I turn and walk to the other side of the doors where I see a sign on the wall explaining that I need to take a shuttle bus to Enterprise. Bingo!
As I turn again to go outside to the shuttle bus, I hear a voice behind me, “Excuse me, Miss?”
It’s a boy. Maybe eight years old? Maybe ten? Certainly not a teenager. A little blonde-haired boy, holding up my water bottle.
“I think you dropped this over there,” he says, pointing toward the Hertz counter.
“Oh! Thank you!” I say, taking the bottle as he walks away. I’m surprised by the kind gesture. It’s not often a stranger will go out of their way to return your half-filled Smartwater. “What a nice little boy!” I think, imagining his parents raising a well-mannered child. “How Iceland!” I think, picturing a nation full of friendly, happy humans — the kind of society where it’s totally normal to be kind to strangers.
I continue outside carrying the water bottle in my hand, so it doesn’t fall out of the backpack pocket again. I’m thirsty (having only drank half a bottle of water on the five-hour flight) so I reach for the cap to twist it open, but before I take a sip, fear sets in.
I stop walking and look closely at the bottle, examining the top. It looks fine.
I take the cap off and sniff. It smells fine.
A feeling of guilt washes over me. Am I being paranoid? Or am I being safe?
A stranger at an airport in a foreign country handed me, a solo female traveler, an unsealed bottle of water. I can’t help but wonder, “What if this is drugged?”
Granted, the stranger was an innocent looking little boy, probably with the best of intentions. Granted, Iceland is one of the safest countries in the world, with virtually no violent crime.
Still.
There are scary people in the world with far from good intentions.
I put the cap back on the bottle and keep walking. There’s a trash bin along the sidewalk, so I toss the bottle in and head over to the shuttle bus.
I’ve thought about this incident a lot since it happened. It was such a small seemingly insignificant event and, yet, it says so much about the world we live in. We’re taught from a young age to distrust strangers. We’re taught, especially as women, to be alert when traveling, to be alert even in your own town. In the parking lots, on the sidewalk, walking to your car at night, running on the trail in the woods. Be careful, we’re told.
But in all this being careful we lose some of our humanity. What about humans looking out for one another? What about love thy neighbor? What about doing a good deed? What ever happened to those things?
I like to believe people are inherently good, but in reality that simply isn’t true. How do you know who and when to trust?
Should I have trusted the little boy handing me my water?
I don’t know…I mostly think it was a kind gesture. But also, I think I did the right thing.
I made the choice to put my safety ahead of my inclination to trust. That’s probably the right move, but it also feels like the cold move. The less human move.
Would I have felt differently if this happened in America? What if it were an adult man handing me the bottle? Or a woman?
Jumper Cables
It’s a Tuesday evening, around 7 pm, but already dark outside as November New England evenings are. I pull into the lot of the grocery store and park my car. I turn the engine off, and then grab my cell phone to respond to a text message while I sit in the warmth of my car.
I hear a knock on my window and glance up to see a man wearing a baseball cap. I roll down the window a little.
“Sorry to bother you, you don’t happen to have jumper cables, do you?” he asks.
“Ummm…” I know immediately that I do indeed have jumper cables lying on the floor behind my seat. And, in a matter of time that’s probably one second, my mind reels through this series of thoughts:
I wonder if he can see the jumper cables through the window.
I could easily reach behind the seat and hand them to him.
But then he’ll need my battery.
I’ll need to get out of my car.
He doesn’t look like a murderer.
He looks like a dad.
But still.
There are other people he could ask.
Why would he ask a woman who’s alone?
Maybe I’m an asshole, but I’ll just lie.
I finally complete my thought that began with, “Ummm…” and tack on the words, “…I don’t think I do, actually. Sorry.”
“Okay, thanks anyway!”
I roll up the window, and sit there for a few more seconds, watching him walk across the aisle of the parking lot toward some other cars.
I complete my grocery shopping like any other night, carefully look around the parking lot while leaving, and drive home, again wondering if I did the right thing to be safe or if I was just being paranoid.
I’m certain I have more stories like this, but these are two that stick out in my mind. I bet everybody has stories like these. Stories where you were a little cold and heartless for the sake of your own safety, whether or not your fears were rational.
What if it was a woman who had asked me for jumper cables? Honestly, I probably would’ve helped out a woman. And it feels wrong of me to say that. This dude was probably a perfectly normal guy with a dead battery, and I failed to help him — even though I very well could have — because…why?
Because I’ve been told my whole life to be careful in parking lots. To be alert. To not talk to strangers. I’ve been told there are people out there (usually men) who abduct children and women and rape them and torture them and murder them.
So, sorry man in grocery store parking lot, no, I cannot help you because you are a man and we live in fear-based world.
And, sorry, boy in Iceland airport, it was very nice of you to return the bottle of water that I dropped but I wastefully threw out the whole thing because I simply can’t trust a kind act at face value.
