Louise's thoughts

Panic button

I was stuffing my gym bag in the trunk of my car early this morning, when suddenly an ear-piercing sound blasted from the car. It was really loud and scared the hell out of me, but I quickly realized that I had accidentally squeezed the key chain too hard and hit the back side panic button. I had actually looked at the key chain when I got the car a couple of days ago, and wondered what exactly that red button did. Now I knew. I pressed the unlock button, because that seemed to be the most reasonable button which, if I was lucky, would make the horrible alarm go away. A woman passed by me as this happened but she just smiled and said 'You didn't expect that to happen, did you?'. Apparently she was more used to panic buttons going off unintended than I was.

I have always wondered why it is so important to have a button that would constantly go off at the wrong times (I was just trying to manage my bag of gym clothes, car keys and a bottle of water that was not going into the trunk, not something out of the ordinary) when it was in fact needed so few times if not never. And when I finally face my attacker in a deep and dark parking structure, one late night, what are the odds that someone will in fact come to my rescue because of just another car alarm? But in this country, panic is important. It is important to think about panic all the time and panic is all around us. So when my car automatically locks the doors after 2 minutes of driving, I am reminded that it does this for my safety. Car doors are supposed to be locked so when I am at a stoplight, no mugger can just open the door and steal my purse or worse, pull me out and steal my car. I have been advised to always lock my doors when driving around by several people who cares about my well being, but it stands in dire contrast to what I learned by my father as a little kid: don't lock the doors, because if you get knocked unconscious in an accident, people should be able to get you out. This has been a constant motive for me to actually never lock my car door; to be honest, I rather want my purse stolen than burn up in an accident. I know very well that this is not so simple in reality, because we take risks all through the day, by walking out the front door and going around doing our business. There is nothing safe about driving in a car, walking on the street and taking a plane. But one thing I realized lately with all the panic around me is that no matter what, that is not the way I want to live my life. I want to be able to go out at night by myself, I want to drive around in my car not having to think about if I will get mugged or if I will get in an accident. I want to open my front door without the chain on and I want to talk to strangers on the street if they ask for directions to the liqueur store. So if it wasn't because my car is a rental that I need to return next Tuesday, I would go and have the car dealer disable the panic button. Because I don't need to panic.