In Blythe Robersons new book,America the Beautiful?
How does one pack for an open-ended trip across a continent?
Id be gone for a spring and a summer, visiting both snowy mountains and deserts.
Every choice was fraught.
Like: which of my baseball hats would not mark me as an East Coast elitist?
ANew Yorkerhat was an obvious no.
The question I asked of each thing I packed was: will this item of clothing get me killed?
It was because he believed the Prius would not sufficiently protect me from getting myself killed.
TB is obsessed with murder; predicting my death is something of a hobby for him.
On the phone TB told me that I should take the motor home he had somehow recently acquired.
Dont take the motor home, my mom interrupted.
Its disgusting, and the mileage is bad.
Its not disgusting, its very nice inside, TB protested.
It gets 12 miles a gallon.
And these people were seemingly normal!
But they all agreed: I would be alone, I would be unsafe, I would be killed.
I bought any number of incredible products designed to prevent that exact thing.
One major category of the Dont Get Murdered Industrial Complex is location-tracking devices.
Almost everyone I told about my trip recommended some sort of location tracker to me.
At best, it would let them figure out that I had been murdered as quickly as possible.
You could buy rape whistles or, as the website called them, hermergency necklaces.
They also sold a striking tool with a baby blue body and sleek silver tip.
I turned my phone screen to the women to show them.
Sorry, I said.
Im not supposed to put this in my butt?
Theyre a financial strain as well.
They dont stock up on Mace.
Bear spray would be enough to keep me safe.
Ultimately I forgot to pack bear spray.
I knew that I would not get murdered on my trip.
It was obvious to me!
Or I could get murdered, sure.
Everyone has to die sometime!
If a deer feels the need to kill me, we should respect the wishes of the deer.
That I had access to a car I could borrow and money to pay for gas was a privilege.
But it wasnt like the world was really so dangerous.
Adapted from AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL?
Copyright 2023 by Blythe Roberson.
Reprinted here with permission from Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
