living in fear

[adrian_turtle]

She was trying to tell me a story about bad customer service at Amazon. The whole thing started with a mistaken delivery--the package should have gone to some house down the street, but UPS left it on her porch by mistake. There was great confusion and delay as she tried to convince Amazon to come get it, and she was appalled that they would need to take it all the way back to the shipping center before delivering properly to the house only a few hundred yards away.

me: Why didn't you take it to the neighbor's house yourself? Wasn't the right address on the box?

her: I couldn't do that! What if he thought it was a bomb or something?

me: He's probably expecting a package from Amazon.

her: Maybe something from Amazon...but not a stranger coming up his walk! Don't you realize how dangerous it is? People can die!

I'm very glad she doesn't want to own a gun, herself, though she was just telling me she believes her community would be safer if more people were allowed to carry them.

I saw a tweet go by* a couple of weeks ago, to the effect that if you want to live through the collapse of civilization, it works better to make your neighbors prosperous than to stockpile the customary survivalist gear. This can work beautifully, if your neighbors like you. (Not LIKE you, like you. Just like you enough to help you in a crisis.) If you live near people who hate you or fear you, their prosperity doesn't help much.


*I have no idea who wrote it. I think I saw it via Abi Sutherland or Terry Karney.

Comments

[redbird]

Along with the paranoia, she's showing (or assuming) a naive faith in uniforms, any uniforms: it wouldn't be terribly difficult for the hypothetical person who wanted to walk up to a house with a bomb to get a UPS or FedEx truck and uniform. (I will stipulate for the moment that when I hand in a package at the UPS or FedEx counter, they do some sort of "is this a bomb" check before delivering it, though we know that some bombs have traveled through the US mail.)

[adrian_turtle]

It's not just that she has a naive faith in uniforms. After all, she is the one who found the unexpected package on her porch, and took it into her house without suspecting for a moment that it might be dangerous. She assumes it was delivered by somebody in a UPS uniform, but she wasn't watching when it happened. (She refused to OPEN the package, even when Amazon asked her to look for the packing slip--not because she feared it might explode, but because she believed it would be wrong for her to open somebody else's property.)

She doesn't think it's about her being afraid of a random stranger. She expects her neighbor to be afraid of her, because any sensible person would be frightened of a 71-year-old woman carrying an Amazon box to their porch. Frightened enough to justify pre-emptive violence.

I will stipulate for the moment that when I hand in a package at the UPS or FedEx counter, they do some sort of "is this a bomb" check before delivering it, though we know that some bombs have traveled through the US mail.

They don't. They won't ship anything WARM anymore. But they don't actually test for explosives.

[amaebi]

As a society, we in the US give way, way, way too much attention and seriousness to fear.

[adrian_turtle]

Very much agreed.

[conuly]

She's not a stranger, she's a neighbor. How sad that she doesn't think her neighbors will even recognize her.

[adrian_turtle]

It is sad. That's a feature of this neighborhood where respectable people drive everywhere, and only spend time outside to walk a dog, tend a garden, play with a child, or perhaps go jogging or bicycling. She hasn't done any of that in the 30 years she's lived in that house, so OF COURSE she doesn't know any of the neighbors.

[conuly]

God, it sounds like living in a prison.