Straw. Camel. You Know...

This past weekend I had the chance to attend a Spy Escape and Evasion course.  The one I took is a single day class in which I learned a whole lot about staying off the grid, being overly paranoid and keeping myself alive in all sorts of strange situations.

Plus, everyone should carry a tactical pen.

It was completely awesome writing fodder. And very interesting stuff to know in general. I took 10 pages of notes, and still probably missed some.

Not only did the guy give us information, but he also had us doing some hands on activities.  For instance, we tied our neighbor’s wrists with duct tape and then we learned how to get out of it.

Seriously, the Mighty Duct Tape has fallen just a little bit on my respect scale. Not that it still isn’t awesome, because it is, but unless you have a very smart captor, then it’s not at all difficult to get your hands free if they’ve just bound your wrists in front of you.

I’m not going to lie, I felt pretty cool breaking out of duct tape.

We also tackled zip ties. Which I couldn’t break out of using the manly method (although not for lack of trying—the bruises on my wrists attest to that) and had to resort to plan b. Which worked just fine.

After that we tried handcuffs. Who knew women’s hair supplies were so handy? (Okay, a lot of people knew, but not me. I’ve never been in real handcuffs before, okay?) I can both pick the lock and shim the teeth. Go me. J

After lunch, we armed ourselves with bobby pins and barrettes, handcuffed ourselves and climbed into the trunk of a car. One at a time.

Again, I’ve never been in the trunk of a car before. I wasn’t nervous, and got out in about 30 seconds. (I’m pretty proud of that. Only three of us did it under a minute.)

However, as I climbed into the trunk of a Saturn Ion, I imagined getting tossed in there.

That would suck.

After I’d been handcuffed.

Again, more suckage.

And at that point the bad guys wouldn't give me enough time to move my head, and those bent bars that help the trunk hinge and come down when you close the lid would smack me in the face.

Now that’s a bad day. Downright cruel. The not-so-proverbial kicking when they’re down.

So, of course, this will now need to happen to one of my characters. #BeMeanToCharacters is still alive and kicking—growing stronger every day!

Keep up the mean work everyone!