5 reasons why I decided to take my gun carry permit class… and carry this time for real

2.  When I was riding my bike and I stopped to answer Sarah Palin’s email.

Fast forward a few years.  By profession, I’m a ghost writer, or celebrity collaborator, and I always try to be responsive to my authors.  (Check out my books here.)  Once I was riding my bicycle through the 20 or 30 mile loop around the “boon docks” in some of the most beautiful countryside you’ve ever seen.

On that evening, my phone — which doubled as my odometer — told me that I had an email from Sarah Palin.  I pulled off the road, and was trying to dash off a quick response, when a man in a pick up truck pulled up beside me.  Because traffic is pretty rare all the way out on my desolate loop, I was pretty startled.

“You need a lift?” the man said.  His truck was held together by rust, his gun rack full.

I froze.  This is how I’m going to end, I thought.

“No thank you,” I managed.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes sir.”

“Because I could pick you up and throw you in the back of this truck and ain’t no one in the world’d ever know,” he said ominously.

I literally lost my voice.   I’m going to die because I emailed Sarah Palin.

Was he intentionally trying to scare me?  Was he just a Good Samaritan? I couldn’t speak, until finally my speech returned to me.  “No, I’m fine, thank you” and smiled.  Charm was the only thing I had at my disposal, and — eventually — I convinced him not to throw me in the back of his truck.

The incident scared me so badly, I stopped riding my bike around my favorite loop.  My sense of vulnerability grew.  Still I did nothing to protect myself.