Choosing a Topic

I have a million things running through my head today. I'm thinking about flags and patriotism. I had an onslaught of emotions brought on by cleaning out a certain box in my basement marked "scrapbook." There's the ever-present race training with the deadline looming little more than a week away. My father-in-law is in the hospital with heart palpitations as of yet still unexplained for the second time in the past few months. I really want to find a direction in life, but I can't decide which road to take. We still know nothing about when we will finally close on the house, and I'm still waiting around to hear from someone. I couldn't sneak off to the store yesterday to get batteries for my digital camera because there was a bomb threat at one of the local shopping centers, and that stirs up all my worries about the aftershocks of September 11th. I go from one topic to the next, and I never stop on one for long. Each of them is struggling to get control of my brain. It's like groupies at a concert, trying to get backstage.

I don't know what to think, so I'll just choose the last subject and go where it takes me. So� that leaves me with bomb threats, because I'm really not in the mood to hash out all my worries right now. That doesn't do me any good at all, because there is no real ease for those concerns right now, so I end up worrying more and more until I'm in a frenzy and crying again and not getting a damn thing done. So I'm not going to talk about the fallout of the bomb threat, just bomb threats in general.

Despite all this talk about worries, bomb threats don't scare me. It's the bigger picture that makes me nervous. There are more bomb threats because of the attack, and there are more to come. People are crazy and stupid, and who knows what kind of stunts certain loons are going to pull right now.

But that's not even my big concern either. It's the whole fear of what happens next. When the news talks about plans for possible biological warfare, that scares the living shit out of me. I grew up always fearful of nuclear war, living at one of the places labeled "ground zero" should a war ever have occurred, and I never felt as scared as I do of some bacteria that will eat my skin and watching my children suffer from that.

I wasn't going to talk about that, was I? See what I mean about my brain traveling from place to place? I'm a fractured mess right now.

So anyway, back to the bomb threats. Growing up with my dad in the military for eight years of my early life, I was exposed to more bomb threats than the average kid. Being stationed in Guam brought the number of exposed threats up considerably. I don't remember the exact numbers, because I was six, but I do remember getting out of school on quite a few occasions. I don't know why they happened. I never bothered to find out, and when you're six, your parents don't tell you about the why of things like that. Those things scare a six-year-old; just like the thought of people not liking Americans scares Booie. But the bomb threats? Those were just a way to get out of school.

As I grew older, bomb threats were kind of exciting to me, because I'm sick like that. I guess it was the security I felt from my past experience of always having false alarms. I also felt confidence in the police to find whatever might be there if a threat ever turned out to be real. To my knowledge, none ever did, but I highly doubt we would have known about it if it had been. Can you imagine the panic of parents if they were told a bomb was removed from the school? I know I'd be in a tizzy over it.

My general feeling on bomb threats is it is highly unlikely any of them are real. The people who call those things in feel a sense of power, and that's really all they are looking for. They are too cowardly to do more than make an anonymous phone call. They feel satisfaction in sending the police scurrying while wasting community resources. I'm sure they are the first to bitch about tax increases too.

People who plant bombs don't usually tell people about it. They like the element of surprise and are looking to cause a lot of damage. They are making a statement, like McVeigh was doing in Oklahoma City. I'm worried about those bombs; the ones that are hiding, only to be discovered after detonation.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, and that's why the authorities do need to be dispatched every single time they get a threat. Buildings need evacuated, and people need protected. I'm not arguing that. It would be foolish not to take precautions, and that's why I didn't go to the store yesterday, even though I really wasn't worried there was a bomb anywhere. I have enough worries as it is. I don't need to fret about that too.

I guess it all comes down to having faith in our system, our authorities, and our government. Overall, I do believe in those things. I'm not going to take unnecessary risks, and I trust those in charge to do the same. I can't say I am 100% comfortable with Bush at the helm, but I respect those around him, and I think he listens to them. I know I won't agree with everything that happens. I have to admit I was fearful we would fly out with guns blazing after this attack, and I've been pleasantly surprised that prudence has been practiced. Yes, I already have complaints, but generally, I support the way things are going. I feel relatively safe, and I think that's the best indicator that it's been ok so far.