Sibling Adventures

It all began with a text message reading, "how much does a can of mace cost?" that started my adventure last night with my brother.

Our campus is really small, and unfortunately though we live in a safe city we've still got some problems of safety to worry about.  Throughout last semester we had a "visitor" who would appear at our dorm building late in the night wearing absolutely nothing.  The police department keeps getting closer and closer to catching the guy but he's still out smarting us.  Well, he visited again two nights ago, at his earliest time, eleven in the evening.

When I found out about this most recent sighting I sent my brother a text message asking how much mace cost.  I had told him over Christmas break about the issue and we discussed some tactical defense stuff.  No worries until I told him about it yesterday and that I was nervous to walk to the library in the evening after dark now that this guy is back at it again with no pattern in his visits.

So, I went home last night for a few hours.  My brother and I went to Gander Mountain, our favorite place for outdoor gear.  He bought me mace to put on my key chain, mace to keep in my car, and a really nice defensive tactical knife.  When we  home, my brother "certified" me in training with the mace after we did some practice shots with the pretend mace that had come with one of the packages.

I've always felt safe with my brother when he's taught me defensive skills, and he's the only one I would trust to willingly mace me.  He didn't mace me too bad and kept it away from my face for the most part, but I got to experience what it would feel like if I had to actually use my mace and got struck with some of it by the wind.

I don't recall cursing so much in such a short span of time when my brother made me flush the mace off of my neck and face by standing in the cold water for over fifteen minutes, or having something irritate my skin as much as the mace did.  I'm thankful for the experience, though I'm still having to take colder showers than normal not to irritate any left over mace in my skin, I'm prepared for what might happen and can concentrate through the pain.

- Jessie