A Pleasant Day to Be My Kids: How To Throw Off An Abductor—Make A Scene

I don’t know what it is about being sick that sends the mind into the dark places, but moments ago as I drove home my sweet innocent, exercise-flushed daughter from her bball game, and my son from the dropping off library materials (Citizen Kane blu-ray and some evolution art book), it occurred to me that if they suffered or died at the hands of an abductor without my ever having told them to “do something,” I would never forgive myself.

Like, scream or something. I mean, if the slimeball sticks a gun into my babies’ backs and tells them not to scream or he (or she) will shoot, I want them to scream like banshees, because there is no chance they’ll be heard in the woods or cave or basement or wherever he or she takes them.

So between violent sneezes at the corner of the 1st and Main stoplight I say to my naive suburban children, “If you are confronted by a would-be abductor who says not to scream or they’ll kill you, I want you to scream anyway. Because that’s going to be the best way-” and the son interrupts, “-to die?”

Well. Not necessarily, and I try to explain my rationale, that it might be your only chance, maybe, to be heard and rescued. And then I say, “Well. Just do something, and loudly, something unexpected. Like maybe, for instance–make a howler monkey sound at as booming a volume as you’re capable.” They start laughing and for the rest of the drive home join in on what becomes a brainstorm of ways to catch our abductors off guard, freaking them out with the element of surprise and novelty. Among the ideas:

• Bust out your best Wookiee roar, but eardrum-busting LOUD
• Hysterical, Cuckoo’s Nest-nutso laughter
• Criticism, in the form of a Randallesque narration: “Oh, Mr. Abductor Man, how pathetic do you have to be to stick a person up with a gun, I mean, how desperate can you get? I mean, how cliche can a criminal be? Oh, NOW he’s cocked the gun, guess I’ve really pissed him off now, but if I shut up, he’s going to keep abducting me, so I’ll just keep running my mouth off until a)he shoots me, which I doubt he’ll actually do because he’s dumb enough not to have cocked the gun before now he probably doesn’t even have a loaded gun, or b) he just lets me go because I’m just so anooyyying. Is that what you’re gonna do, mister? Is that what you’re gonna do? Okay…“
• Chanting the Black Speech of Mordor
• Show tunes: break into an Ethel Merman impersonation singing, “There’s NO business like SHOW business, like NO business I KNOOOOOW, there’s a MAN pointing a GUN at my back, PLEASE call nine-one-oooooone….”

Oh, so upon further research I see that screaming’s a bad idea. But doing “something” could save your life. Running away is one idea, according to the WikiHow’s How to Thwart an Abduction Attempt: 10 Steps. But I still think belting out a little Ethel Merman could work. I hope neither they, nor I , nor YOU, ever have to find out. Be safe! Do something! Make a scene. Run. Lie. “Fight as if your life depends on it,” because it might.