Keep Calm and Carry On

I'm working on not jumping to wild conclusions and overreacting. Mostly because it is exhausting. For example, the emotional drama I put myself through every time I freak out after going on WebMD when I have a weird ache or pain is worse for my health than anything.
And when I'm at a bar and a random guy starts talking to me, it's probably not accurate to be assuming that he is just planning to mug me.

But I do find it hard to calm my own self down when I live in this world where it seems everyone around us is anxious to escalate every benign situation into epic mass panics.




A great example of this occurred this week at a Target in Australia involving a man, a selfie, a Darth Vader cut out, and a crazed, paranoid woman. 

It shook down like this: A man stopped in the toy section to take a funny selfie with a giant Darth Vader cut out to show his kid. But then a female shopper heard from her kids who were also in the toy aisle about a man, wandering alone in the toy section, with a camera pointed at them. She did what any reasonable person would do and jumped to a crazy conclusion-that he was a child pedophiler. So she took his picture and posted it on the interwebs labeling him as such.
Here is the inflammatory rant she posted along with the picture:

Her post went viral and now this poor Star Wars loving man is receiving death threats and is afraid to leave his house.
This is a good lesson. We do need to calm our tits down. Maybe also stop binge watching brain food for these fears like Law and Order SVU.  
But, here's the thing-I can understand the thought path paved with paranoia this woman was on. And cell phone snap shots can be deceiving. It's hard to tell which of the two lens on cell phones is actually taking the picture. We are all walking around with James Bond spy gadgets. In fact, I have, on more than one occasion, pretended to take a selfie so that really I could surreptitiously take a picture of somebody doing or wearing something ridiculous that I felt I needed to share. And to keep up that ruse, I even pulled a fake selfie face. So, yeah, her fear is not totally unfounded. But, still.....

May the force be with us all as we try to navigate the galaxy of hysteria.

(Also, I'm back and you're welcome!)

If This Had Been A Real Emergency....

If you know me, or read this blog, or have seen/heard me talk about this, you know I am afraid of flying-or as I call it-afraid of suddenly not flying. I have even dedicated an entire blog to helping you understand (and laugh at) my anxiety with this.

So knowing that, you can imagine my horror in learning that for about $300, I could experience a fake flight disaster at British Airways Flight Safety Awareness Course. 
According to the Huffington Post, this course is designed so it "encourages passengers to be aware of their surroundings and familiarize themselves with what happens in an emergency." It also is supposed to make you feel more confident about the skills and experience of your captain and crew. The idea is if you are confident and prepared, you won't panic. But to be honest, just reading about what this course experience all entails, I was in a total panic.

You board a simulator plane, take a seat, and then there are sounds and motions to create a take off. Shortly after that, you enter my worst nightmare, as they fill the simulated craft with smoke and the crew yells "Brace! Brace!" At this point, I would probably pass out from hyperventilating. Even knowing this is fake.
Part of the curriculum is teaching you the proper brace position. You know the "put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye." They explain this procedure in detail and it should involve placing your head down, feet firmly planted and slid back towards you, with your dominant hand on top of your head and your other hand on top of that hand. The reasoning for this hand placement is that if something happens and your top hand is impacted and consequently shattered, your dominant hand can still unbuckle your seat belt so you can evacuate the plane. Great.
Next in this fun experience they yell at you to evacuate. This is described as a "scramble." And apparently opening those emergency exits over the wing is not as easy as you think. So think carefully about selecting that seat just for the tempting extra leg room. You don't want to get stampeded by angry passengers in a panic if you take too long working at opening it. But also, I'm not sure it matters, as they also explain that the doors of the plane allow 6-8 passengers to get out in the time it takes 1 to get out that smaller door over the wing exit and in the disaster every second matters. Ahhhh I'm stressed out just reading this.
Another little helpful tidbit in case of emergency is to not inflate your life jacket on the plane, because apparently "if water fills the cabin, passengers with inflated vests can be pressed up against the ceiling, unable to swim down to the door." Just let that image sink in of you floating around like Charlie breaking the rules in the Chocolate Factory chamber. Except instead of farting your way down to a stern talking to by Willy Wonka, you die.
Probably the only thing that makes this course worth the nightmares it will induce is the fact that you get to go down that slide that you always hear these planes are equipped with, but you don't ever get, or really want, to see.

So, yeah, if you want to experience a disaster, in a controlled setting, go ahead and sign up for this class. But really, for the cost of the class you could go on a trip, ideally on a plane where none of this occurs.

Shutting Down.

Think the Government's Ctrl+Alt+Delete doesn't affect you? Think again. It has caused a black out of the Panda Cam at The National Zoo. 

Try not to panic!!

As for me, I am also shutting down as well for the day. If the Government can't provide me with the Panda Cam, then I just can't go on.

*And in keeping with the shut down theme and in case the absence of the Panda Cam has left you looking for a way to waste your time today, here's an interesting article on the history of Ctrl+Alt+Delete shut down-which apparently was a mistake! I'm sure we'll look back at this Government shut down and call it a mistake too.