Holiday Season Awareness Thread (Or HSAT for short)

[Photoman]

Walk to/from the stores with your head up, likeit's on a swivel. MAKE EYE CONTACT with anyone & everyone. If anyone acts suspicious, make hard eye contact.

Hard eye contact is a form of aggression. Be careful with that one. Better to give a good solid look*, then go about your business with the person always in your side vision.

*Mindset is: I see you, I will hurt you if you force me to, but for now I'm going to go about my business.

[stevie_d_64]

I don't think eye contact (hard or soft) is incitement at all...

If another person is offended or decides to take action upon that, its their problem, not mine...

If they are doing something that is perceived by me to be a threat...You bet I am going to lock on phasers, open the outer doors, firing point procedures...

They may not know what I am prepared to do, but rest assured it will not happen if "they" just go about their business...

Most of the time I am not so persnickety, and go about my business anyway...You'd never know it from me...But I am tired of the perception of those who carry as to being on some kind of power trip, or hair trigger away from doing something drastic, despite my previous statement to the contrary...

No, I am not relaxing in my armchair!

[Sarah81]

Spread out shopping trips. It's tempting to get most of the shopping done at once, especially if you go to the mall and hit half the stores, but you need to keep one hand free at all times. For drawing, or calling the police, or punching out the other parent who's trying to get the last Dora the Explorer doll. (Just kidding on that last one, folks!)

There are going to be huge crowds all day long at this time of year, so you can't really pick an off-peak time to get the shopping done. But you can try like heck to avoid being in the mall's parking garage at 10 p.m.

We're there to spend money. The bad guys are there to take it. If you HAVE to bring a wad of cash, keep it separated out. That way, you aren't flashing much when you pay for your stuff.

Or...keep a careful eye on your credit/debit card. I have just one. If I had more, I would leave as many as possible at home. If somebody takes off with just one card, I have to worry about just one phone call to cancel it.

Then again: I like shopping online. No crowds, no lines and no trudging all the way to the other end of the shopping center if the store is sold out of what I want. :)