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| Picture of really worried guy I found on the internet. |
There are a lot of things to worry about in the world today, but some of them you shouldn’t lose sleep over. I’m here to help you sort out what is and is not worthy of your paranoia:
WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT BE PARANOID ABOUT:
Someone breaking into your house
Gun nuts are by far the most paranoid people out there. You ask them why they need one, and they inevitably will say it’s because they need to protect their family and themselves in case someone breaks into their home. You know whose homes do get broken into a lot? Drug dealers. If the last 7.75 years I’ve spent working at a big police department have taught me anything, it’s that people who aren’t involved in criminal activity are rarely victims of violent crime. I think it’s safe to say 99 percent of home robberies in my city (a robbery connotes that someone is confronted when the crime takes place) happen at homes in which the occupants are up to shady and illegal business. The other 1 percent is not worth possessing a gun over. Those are usually people’s houses who got mistaken for drug dealer’s houses. Also, it’s statistically far more likely that if a struggle ensues with a suspect, the victim will be disarmed and have their gun used against them. So stop freaking out over your “castle” being breached, and just lock your doors and windows. Also, don’t sell narcotics. If you do, then you do have justified paranoia about your house getting broken into.
Stranger danger
Your local news stations love this stuff. They know it makes terrified parents everywhere tune in and boost their ratings, especially during sweeps months (I’ll have to do a whole post on those in the future). It usually goes something like, “A single-digit-aged boy/girl says a man in a white van pulled up to his/her bus stop and tried to get him/her to get into his car.” And four out of five times, the kid just made it up. I don’t know why - attention, a disconnect with reality, having watched too much local news, who knows. Once or twice a year, this legitimately happens somewhere in the United States, and a child really does get kidnapped and something horrible happens to them. It’s all over Nancy Grace and the 24-hour news networks. But it only gets that much news coverage because it’s so rare and unusual. The news doesn’t care about stuff that happens every day. CNN isn’t having some southern-accented talking head babbling for half an hour about possible motives in a car break-in (see below). Because thousands of those happen every day. A good rule of thumb is that the more news coverage a particular type of incident gets, the more rare it is.
Big brother
I’ve always kind of been of the opinion that I don’t care if someone is spying on me because I’m law-abiding and my life is boring. Maybe I’m naive, but again, I think this is mainly a concern of drug dealers. Oh, and terrorists. And people who look at porn at work. Also, don’t ever take naked pictures. Ever. They always end up on the internet. Also, guys, women pretty much never want to see that.
WHAT YOU SHOULD BE PARANOID ABOUT:
Super bacteria
Now this - this is scary stuff. With our lackadaisical attitude toward antibiotics and antibacterial everything, we’re creating bugs that are mutating to the point that they’re resistant to everything we can throw at them. A few years ago, I had something called erysipelas multiple times over a two-year period. I referred to it as “strep face” because it was a strep infection on the skin of my face, similar to cellulitis. Why did it keep coming back? Because it was resistant. I had to see an infectious disease specialist and try three different antibiotics, including one that made my pee and tears turn neon red. Anyway, one of these horrid things superbugs, C. diff, can only be cured by fecal transplant - yup, getting someone else’s poop transferred into you. (Thank you to my nurse friend Nicole for telling me about this amazing medical breakthrough. There are poo donors and everything. Is there a national registry for that? I’m on the National Bone Marrow Donor registry, and I think it would be much less painless to be a poop donor. I’m always terrified the marrow donor people are going to call, but I think I’d be kind of eager to get the poop donor notification.)
“Anti-vaxxers”
I recently read an article in The Atlantic titled, “Wealthy L.A. schools’ vaccination rates are as low as South Sudan’s.” Because one of the greatest medical advancements in the history of humanity and all the science and success behind it just wasn’t as important to those kids’ parents as what former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy thinks about why her son has autism. Not shockingly, these communities are seeing a surge of whooping cough, measles and the like. I was terrified before my son was old enough to be fully immunized because I was afraid he might be exposed to one of these idiot’s children and succumb to something that hasn’t really been seen since my mom was a kid. These people are bringing down the “herd immunity” function of vaccines and re-introducing terrible diseases. I think their children should have to wear neon shirts every day proclaiming they are not immunized so all the other kids can avoid them.
Someone breaking into your car
Oddly, it’s the crime stuff people worry about the least that they’re most likely to be a victim of (and no, I couldn’t think of a way to end this sentence without a preposition so it would still flow correctly). Please, for all that is holy, be paranoid about people breaking into your car. The police I work with have preached to the point of exhaustion that you need to lock it up and not leave any items of value in plain view. But still, the vast, vast, majority of crime in my city happens because people don’t do that. Endless police resources are expended on this entirely preventable crime. Don’t leave your phone, GPS, bag, purse, briefcase, nice sunglasses or anything like that in your car. I’ve even seen several cars broken into for loose change in a cup-holder. Here’s the thing: most of the people who do this are drug addicts. They will take whatever they can that has value and pawn it or sell it to get money for their next fix. Even if your car is locked, a junky won’t think twice about busting your window to steal your smartphone. So just don’t leave it in there. Not even for a little bit. Sometimes, however, I leave my Bible in my car in it’s kind of bag-like cover. I almost hope someone will steal it, see what it is, feel horrible deep down in their soul, and forever change their ways.
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