Be Prepared

My older sister, Lara, had a flair for the dramatic. One night when my parents went out, she gathered my younger sister and me in the kitchen and said we needed to arm ourselves from people who might try to come kidnap us. She was hovering near the phone when suddenly it rang. She picked it up and innocently asked “Hello?…um, no…what?!” She slammed the receiver down and stared at us with wide eyes. “Oh my god, you guys. That was a woman who just asked if our parents were home, and when I said ‘no,’ she cackled and said, ‘Thank you.'”

Alana and I glanced at each other, figuring she used that trick where you could make your own phone ring, but Lara was a force of nature, so we had no choice but to go along with it. She rummaged around in the back of the pantry and pulled out the sharpest knife in the house, a fish knife that my dad kept in a leather sheath and out of the way. This would be her weapon. She used a belt to fasten it to her leg. She then opened the drawer with the other knives and pulled out a serrated bread knife and, with gravitas, declared this would be my weapon. She dug around in the closet for a scarf and tied it to my leg.

Lastly, Alana was to be armed. Lara, with some sense, presented a round-tipped dinner knife to her five-year-old sister. I’m pretty sure she just tied this to Alana’s arm with a string.

Then…we waited. She made us hang out under the kitchen table for what felt like hours, but was probably more like 20 minutes. At last, probably bored herself, she declared the woman was probably not going to come kidnap us…this time..and allowed us to drop our weapons and go watch TV.