Backstory: I e-mailed my mom to tell her I’d be driving 4.5 hours alone to another state because my boyfriend can’t go anymore. I’m 24.
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
we’ll buy you a plane ticket!
help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I gotta get off the computer!
Help!
Oh no!
panic attack
young woman should not drive long distance on highway alone!
alert alert!
danger danger!
friend!
buddy! paqrtner!
help!
call [dad]!
[dad] will hep!
danger danger
alert alert!
Danger, Wilma Robinson, danger!
October 31, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I’ve heard THIS speech before :/ At least my parents aren’t the only ones who think that a woman traveling alone is asking for trouble. When I was in college, they wouldn’t let me go to the movies in our small town in broad daylight without an escort because I might be kidnapped or harassed while alone in the theater…
October 31, 2009 at 5:54 pm
My Mom felt the same way until I got a cell phone – that was 8 years ago (or so).
October 31, 2009 at 8:31 pm
My grandmother used to say this, too. “People get shot on highways”. Apparently, I was perfectly safe if I was driving TO her house; it was only dangerous if I tried to leave.
October 31, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Do NOT listen to your mom… I strongly dislike parents who do this to their daughters. Don’t let people hold you back! For Christ’s sakes, you’re in a locked car!
October 31, 2009 at 11:01 pm
windows are not unbreakable. So until polices are alert and people are mannered it is risky for all of us to drive alone, even for men. Risk is a bit more for us, female. We must be strong enough to fight against this.
but parents cannot think of taking any risk. So they are over precocious. Let try to make them understand but never get feared.
May 27, 2013 at 11:48 pm
Oh Lili, must you take everything so seriously?
November 1, 2009 at 12:25 am
My Mum when I informed her that I was travelling 34 hours alone on a bus across three states merely said “don’t use the loo on the bus, loos on busses are disgusting, pee at the side of the road if you have to”
My safety or lack thereof didn’t enter her mind, just the toilet facilities 8-)
November 1, 2009 at 8:19 am
I come from a state where it really could be a three hour drive to the next restroom. Here it’s just what you do, regardless of gender. Then again there is the mental undertone of it’s not dangerous like living in the city, and bad things happen somewhere else.
November 1, 2009 at 4:50 pm
When I was 17 I took the Greyhound from Boston to Washington DC, changing in New York. My grandma was so horrified she called up Greyhound to see if I’d be safe, and their advice was to make sure I didn’t go to the bathroom in the New York bus station at 2 in the afternoon, it wasn’t safe. (The bus toilets were fine by the way). I did use the bathroom, and told her, she was so upset. I neglected to tell her about the man who offered to show me his gun collection at 3 am in Cincinatti on a bus trip I took a few weeks later…..
November 2, 2009 at 9:09 am
Anne – Greyhound actually told someone not to use the bathrooms in the New York bus station because it isn’t safe?! I’m no huge fan of Greyhound, but I never felt unsafe anywhere during daylight hours. Sure, there might have been large piles of used toilet paper and some fecal matter on the floor of the women’s restroom in the Richmond station, but nothing unsafe!
November 2, 2009 at 9:37 am
Helenel – that sounds like my Aunt in Pennsylvania. We’re only safe in the confines of her home!
November 2, 2009 at 12:59 pm
If you ever have to take the Greyhound, do what I did going from Tulsa to Milwaukee and act insane by rocking back and forth and muttering to yourself. At least no one will sit next to you. If someone does, you can augment the rocking and muttering with things like (cocking your head like you’re listening) “What? What? No! I’m not going to stab him! He’s not doing anything, he’s just sitting next to us! No! He’s not doing anything! I won’t do it!…” etc. until they leave. Works like a charm.
November 2, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Wendy – and with the memory of the guy who decapitated his seatmate on a bus in Canada so fresh in our minds (OK, maybe a little stale), that won’t end badly.
November 2, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Ha! the first time I was planning to drive across country by myself my Mom was horrified. My Dad was saying I was a wuss for not hitchhiking!
November 2, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Look just keep your AK47 laying across your lap. Advice from my 83 Y.O. mom.
November 5, 2009 at 9:24 pm
That’s funny, I drive home from college twice a year by myself. It’s a five hour drive in good weather and seven hours in really bad snow. My parents just go with the classic, keep the doors locked, make sure you know how to put chains on your car, and stop half way through for a break and to eat something.
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August 30, 2017 at 10:37 pm