Alarming Behavior

By nature, I’m a panicker. Am I proud of this trait? No. But there it is, out in the open, unless you already know me, and you’re nodding your head and saying, “Tell me something I don’t know.” It doesn’t take much to get my adrenaline pumping. I jump at the slightest noise. I startle easily. I’ve spent a lifetime just trying to calm down and catch my breath. I’ve tried meditation and yoga, behavioral modification and various numbing devices.

My penchant for panic descends directly from my Russian grandmother, who perfected the art of pacing. Whenever we came over, there she was in front of the house, traversing the driveway, back and forth, back and forth, worrying her big gray bouffant over why we hadn’t arrived yet. Not that we were late. My family is genetically incapable of tardiness, which explains why we’re always the early ones waiting for other people to show up. Given this history, I have a built-in alarm system of my very own; a sixth sense when I think something is off. I’m the detective around here, on the hunt for clues. Just the other day, my private alarm system went off so loudly, it alerted an entire book store full of bargain-hunting holiday shoppers. As I passed through the front door, I heard beep… beep… BEEP. I wasn’t the only one, apparently. Heads turned. Eye brows rose.  It was embarrassing.

“Shush!” I told my internal alarm, searching for the code to turn it off.  “Everyone’s looking.”  Beep… beep… BEEP!  I stood there frozen. Oh. This is bad. I’ve gone over the edge. All my inner fears, those pesky culprits that keep me up at night, have staged a noisy uprising. After countless threats, they’ve gone and done it. They’ve decided to go public.  Beep… beep… BEEP!

What to do? Standing there in the entry, all eyes upon me, I blushed and giggled like a nervous schoolgirl.  It was only minutes before the men in white coats would come to carry me away. I might as well go out laughing. In the midst of this strange behavior, the security guard approached. And then, it dawned on me.  Christmas is only weeks ago.  This is prime time for shoplifting.  Just maybe it wasn’t my own central alarm going off.  Just maybe it might be the store alarm, instead.

“What’s in your handbag, ma’am?”  I won’t lie. In the face of authority, I go all Woody Allen. I crumple. “Er… nothing, officer,” I declared, handing it over for inspection. Did he think I’d stolen something on my way in?  Like what?  Air?

A quick look revealed nothing but a cell phone, a lipstick, a wallet made in China, purchased in America. His mood brightened immediately. He wouldn’t have to call for back up, after all. Still, the mystery of what I’d done to set off the alarm remained unsolved. United in our cause, we decided to figure this one out together. We each had our theories. I thought it was my belt. He thought it was a department store sensor still buried in my handbag or shoes. One by one, I took off an item. Before long, I had an appreciative crowd cheering me on. I haven’t had this kind of attention in ages. I decided to milk it. I strutted my stuff.  I worked it. I tossed in a  hint of bump and grind.  "Hold your applause," I purred.

Off came my belt.  Beep, beep. Off came my shoes. You guessed it. Beep, beep. Finally, it was down to my pants. As I debated whether to add indecent exposure to my growing list of peccadilloes, the guard ran his hand-held detector thingie over my jeans and sure enough, somewhere deep in the lining, lurked the beep-maker under suspicion.  “Stand back, everyone,” he warned the crowd. “I’m going to desensitize her.”
I bit my lip. “Will it hurt?” “You won’t feel a thing, lady,” he reassured me.

As he slid the high-tech gizmo back and forth over the seam of my Banana Republic, jeans that had up and humiliated me for no good reason, except maybe neglect (I hadn't washed them in a while), the beeping magically ceased. This brave and helpful sentinel of security, assigned to protect the store from people like me, had indeed desensitized my pants. But only my pants. Sadly, I remained just as overly sensitive, thin-skinned and easily hurt by the dumbest things imaginable as ever before.  For now, I’ll have to settle for jeans that don’t set off alarms anymore… except of course, when they don’t fit right. Then I’m looking at a whole other kind of panic.