Delusions of grandeur

Three factors have led to my most recent late night experience. The first being my state of semi-employment which means quite a bit of free time on my hands. The second being my discovery of the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on hulu.com. The third being my pre-existing proclivity of overestimating my physical strength.

I have, in record time I believe, made my way through almost all three seasons of Buffy available on Hulu. I watched Buffy when it was on TV, but had forgotten how awesome she (it?) is. She is incredibly awesome. Watching a tiny blonde chick kick some serious butt (I know a lot of it is stunt doubles, but still, the stunt double is probably still on the relatively small side, right?) really pumps me up. After an episode I always want to go out and deliver a roundhouse kick to someone’s head and then make a snappy pun when they hit the ground.

So now it’s time for you to wonder what kind of experience too many episodes of Buffy could lead to. Well, I’m glad you asked. The other night I was walking home rather late from a wild and crazy night babysitting and decided that rather than walk across the 4 avenues on the bigger street that has more cars and people late at night, I would walk on my street, which is smaller and less populated. Not really that big of a deal, but I do live in Harlem, and walking on that street means I would have to walk past some housing projects. I’ve lived in Harlem for almost a year and as of yet have no encounters of the criminal kind to report (everyone please knock on wood for me) and have gained a bit of confidence when walking the streets late at night. Which I don’t do that often.

I really believe it’s all about attitude. If you look scared of getting mugged, people are going to, if not mug you, then at least make some threatening comments or something. (Note: I don’t count men saying things like, Have a good night beautiful, to be threatening. Unless of course they start following you down the street afterward.) Also, I tend to think of myself as really tough. I assume I can probably fight off any guy that would try to attack me through sheer willpower, and perhaps an adrenaline rush. Also, I used to always try and fight/wrestle with the boys when I was a kid. I always thought they were kind of weak.

So there I was walking across 127th street and I was debating with myself. Should I just go down to 125th street to be on the safe side? Is 125th actually any safer than 127th? Cutting two blocks out of my walking seemed incredibly important at the time, but now I’m not really sure why, as I love walking around the city, especially at night. Just not necessarily in Harlem. So I kept walking as I debated. I pictured a number of different scenarios that might arise. Someone following me down the street, someone actually trying to steal my backpack (by the way, when I have thought about what I would do if I were to get mugged, I think I would beg and plead with the person to at least let me take my knitting from the bag. Some things just can’t be replaced. Like the hours of my life I’ve spent knitting this:

So all these things are running through my head, and do you know what I think? I think, Well, if someone does attack me, I can kick them in the leg to distract them, at which point I will then deliver a powerful punch to the face, followed by a kick in the stomach, which will bring them to the ground. Ok, so at that point it would make sense that if I was actually able to disable someone like that I should then hightail it out of there and call the cops or something. But no, the thought process continues as follows: Once they are on the ground, I will pounce, grabbing the assailant by the shirt and pulling his head up off the ground, demanding to know who sent him. When he refuses to respond I will slam his head into the ground and make my demand again. He will finally give me the information I need, and he will be of no use to me anymore, so I pull a wooden stake out of my boot and stab him directly in the hea…Oh…wait a second. He’s not a vampire. Nor am I the one of my generation chosen to slay vampires.

It’s at this point I realize I am almost home and nothing even resembling a threat has come my way. It’s what I said about attitude. In my head I was busy pounding some guy to a pulp, so obviously I must have looked so intimidating that anyone who may have considered mugging me steered clear. That or it was only 11 o’clock at night and no one was really looking to cause trouble yet. But whatever, I still think I could beat someone up if I really had to.