“Lazy Susan” by Nancy Pickard (summery)

Susan had been robbed the week before on a dark night in the parking lot of the Mulberry street Shopping Centre when she asked her husband to teach her how to shoot a gun and took her to a shooting range. Stan was surprised because had been telling her to learn how to protect herself but she hated guns. Stan promised to take her to a range that night.

Susan had been more angry than scared because it was a little injure added to the greater insult of robbed her fifty hard-earned dollars. It was a bit of an exaggeration. She did have a job as a receptionist in a sale office but there was more work that did not get done than did. She used to say to her friends that she was “lazy Susan”.

In the shooting range, Susan realized that it was surprisingly pleasant to hold the little gun while she had been shooting.  She wanted to blow the smoke away from the end of the gun like John Wayne.

She took a three-week self-defence course. In the first week, she had learned to scream loudly and to run away fast. In the second week, they had looked at keys and scissors as potential defence weapons. The last week, the topic was “who is a likely mugging victim?” the self-defence expert showed them a picture of little old woman carrying a shopping bag in one hand and a purse in the other. He recommended them to walk confidently, put their heads up, pull their shoulders back, and to carry their purses under their arms. Susan raised her hand and asked “is there any way to identify a typical mugger?” the instructor smiled and responded “he is the one wearing dark clothes, hiding in the bushes.” Everyone but Susan laughed.

At the end of the course, the women walked out confidently and with their heads high. Stan was delighted at how much stronger and more confident Susan seemed. “You look single-minded” he said. Susan was still angry about being robbed and promised that nobody was going to mistake her for a victim again.

Stan would not have approved of Susan going to the movies alone, but she went. It had been one of the superman films and she felt inspired. A group of dark bushes were between her and her car. She walked confidently straight through them, then she stopped and saw a man before he saw her. She thought of the hours she had worked to earn those fifty dollars and took from her pocket the little gun. As the man walked past the bushes, she jumped behind him so he could not see her. 

...how do you think the story end? have you ever been mugged? what did you react? what do you think about guns? have you ever used a gun?