pass me the pepper...spray

As a young child, my family lived in a city that was quickly becoming rampant with violent crime. It was common for me to see my relatives taking guns with them on road trips, and nearly every woman in my family had a little leatherette pepper spray holster on her keychain. These types of self defense products are commonplace in any urban area riddled with crime. But the fact is, it doesn't hurt to have them in other areas, too. Crime happens everywhere.

So it was with a bit of fervor that I received the chance to do a product review for some pepper spray.


I am no stranger to the effects of pepper spray. When I was a teenager, one of my coworkers released a can of pepper spray into a grocery store ventilation system. He thought it would be funny. It wasn't. Within minutes the substance permeated the store, and everyone was coughing and wheezing. My eyes watered and my throat burned. It was a horrible experience, and they eventually had to evacuate the store until the air had cleared out. Keep in mind that this was only an indirect application of pepper spray. I can only imagine how it would feel to get sprayed right in the face.

So I figured I would try it out...not on myself, of course.


The wife and I planned for a night on the town...in the worst part of town we could find. After all, that's where all of the hip bars are located. We took out a handful of cash and went in style. I rented a tux, carried a cane and wore expensive wingtip shoes and my Rolex, while my better half sported sapphire earrings, a 1.3 carat diamond pendant I had given her for our last anniversary, her gold watch, a stunning silk dress and floor-length mink coat. We parked our Cadillac Escalade (with 28 inch aluminum spinner wheels) and we took a crisp stroll through the ghetto, armed with our pepper spray...looking for a good blues bar, but ready for trouble. Like moths to a flame (or light reflected off my wife's diamond jewelry), we were approached by three thugs who at first attempted to sell us some "second-hand" jewelry. We showed them that we were both wearing more than enough jewelry already, and they began to drool like dogs.

The shortest of the three then pulled a blade from his pocket and demanded our goods. I pulled out my pepper spray and gave each of them a good dose in the face. Two dropped their weapons and ran off screaming. Our main assailant, Shorty, lay writhing on the ground, clutching his face and gasping for air. I hadn't exactly gotten it into his eyes, but it didn't matter - the stuff worked great. But to make sure that we had given our new products their just review, my wife uncapped hers, which was disguised as a large lipstick, and gave him a few extra shots in his eyes while he was down. This time he actually screamed, and was apparently in much more pain. So I made a mental note to mention in this review that getting it directly in the eyes is probably more effective. It gave us more than enough time to get away and finish our slow stroll through the urban moonlight, which lit up the spouts of sewer steam like volcanic ghosts.


Okay, okay. This story is a hoax. It never happened, and I don't even own a cane.
;)

But it demonstrates a few of the fallacies behind self defense. First, you don't have to be in a bad part of town to run into bad people. Second, you don't have to be looking for trouble, or advertising riches. Third, don't live a defenseless life depending on the police. It's also a good idea to not value your possessions over your life. Some might argue with me, but I figure that you can always get another diamond, whereas your husband is one-of-a-kind. (Some might argue that statement, too.)

When it comes to pepper spray and other forms of self defense, they are good to have, regardless of where you are. I live in a small, friendly, relatively crime-free town, and yet I still take my gun with me on long drives. I still lock up my doors at night, and I *will* carry my pepper spray with me whenever I leave the house. I just hope that I never have to use it. When it comes to personal safety, overkill is better than being killed.