A Woman Who Scared Me

I met a woman a few weeks back at a party who truly scared me. When I first met her, her demeanor caught my eye. She was unique. I assumed she was a goody-two-shoes, you know one of those women who does everything by the book: gets straights A in school, follows the speed limit, keeps a perfect house, is so strict on being proper that she was socially a little awkward? Well, I was right about the socially awkward, but I was blown away when she randomly confessed to driving 110 miles an hour on a freeway and getting a ticket. After all, she was not 18. She is a married woman, I suspect near 30 years of age.

Read moreYou’d think when you hear a person of her age making a confession like this that she would be telling the story as a confession of her ignorant youth–claiming that she learned her lesson. Yet ironically and totally unexpectedly, she continued her story in almost a bragging way when she told us on that same day, she got another speeding ticket for going over 100 again–on the same highway.

Oddly missing was the shame, embarrassment, etc. that we all feel when we did something stupid in our youth.

I immediately checked in. She was someone truly extraordinary.

Through continued conversation, it came out that she is not afraid of driving at fast speeds and still does it.

I was mortified.

She is a married woman for Pete’s sake. I really wanted to share my thoughts that she was putting other people in danger, but how she talked, I knew it was hopeless. She is convinced she is a great driver, and her dad got her a radar detector so she doesn’t keep getting tickets. He obviously gave up that he could stop her, or he is just as crazy as she is.

I asked her if she had any fears whatsoever and she responded that she doesn’t. If she messes something up, she told me, she’ll just fix it. She can fix anything.

Hello, you can’t fix a dead man!? Have you ever thought of that? I wanted to blurt it out, but socially I knew that wouldn’t fly, so I sat amongst the crowd. People did question her seriously, but she took it all as a joke. Her confidence and stance was clearly abnormal.

The woman was deluding herself. I think many people started wondering if this woman was for real, and I think most people quickly came to the conclusion that she was. This was no joke. It made you squirm, though not everyone caught on. Some people just found it humorous. I was certainly not laughing.

As the night went on, I found out this woman works in an elderly care facility and she is working to become a nurse.

To say I was mortified is an understatement. I really wish I hadn’t heard that. If she was anything else, I would have cared less, but to care for people with such a disregard for life?

OMG.

For this woman to have no ability to reason that her dangerous behavior can easily kill others, and to believe in an arrogant way that she can fix whatever she does wrong, it only spells disaster, if she becomes a nurse, and I believe she absolutely will.

This woman will ace all of her tests and get licensed. From a technical stand point, I suspect she will be a superior nurse. But on the emotional side, I shudder. She doesn’t have the normal barriers of compassion and concern to administer anything to another person. She is one woman that if we were to follow, will likely face some serious disasters in her personal or professional life that will impact the lives of innocent people who cross her path, and yet there is nothing any one of us can do about it.

That’s chilling! I think it will haunt me for years to come… I will never forget her.