L.B.: Educational filmstrip

Left Behind, pp. 400-409

An alternative interpretation of these pages ...

How to Handle a Stalker

You meet someone at a dinner party in a city far from home. He seems pleasant, normal enough. You depart on friendly terms, telling him to give you a call if he's ever in your part of the country.

The next morning you learn that he has booked a flight to your city. More than that, he has booked a seat on the very same flight you are taking home and, telling the airline that he is your traveling companion, has arranged for the seat next to yours. What should you do? How should you handle this aggressive, frightening development and this man's increasingly disturbing advances?

In this educational filmstrip, we'll watch as our young subject -- let's call her "Chloe" -- attempts a variety of strategies for coping with her stalker. We'll call him "Buck."

Boop. Please advance the filmstrip now.

1. Ignore him and hope he takes the hint.

Do not make eye contact and do not initiate conversation. Use body language to reassert the personal boundaries your stalker is attempting to disregard.

Buck waited until everyone else had boarded. As he approached his seat next to Chloe, her body was turned toward the window, arms crossed, chin in her hand. Whether she even had her eyes open, Buck couldn't tell. He assumed she would turn to glance as he sat next to her, and he couldn't suppress a smile, anticipating her reaction and only slightly worried that she would be less positive than he hoped.

He sat and waited, but she did not turn.

Boop.

2. Wait for him to fall asleep, then move to another seat.

Despite her defensive body language and her refusal to acknowledge his presence, Chloe's unwelcome seatmate is not backing down. She could tell from his manic, disheveled appearance that he had barely slept since she saw him last, so she tries to wait him out.

And now he had a problem. As he warily watched for the change in position that would allow Chloe to see him in her peripheral vision, he was suddenly awash in fatigue. His muscles and joints ached, his eyes burned. His head felt like lead. No way was he going to fall asleep and have her discover him dozing next to her.

Buck gestured to get the attendant's attention. "Coke, please," he whispered. The temporary caffeine rush would allow him to stay awake a little longer.

When Chloe didn't move even to watch the safety instructions, Buck grew impatient. Still, he didn't want to reveal himself. He wanted to be discovered. And so he waited.

Boop.

3. Take the initiative, establish control.

Her stalker has continued staring at her, unrelenting, all through takeoff and the first 10 minutes of the flight, pausing only to bully the flight attendant into getting him a soda before she'd even given the safety instructions. Chloe is beginning to get scared. Ignoring him isn't working, so she tries a different tactic, aggressively initiating conversation herself and doing her best to establish control over the situation.

Chloe is aware that stalkers can be unpredictable. Buck clearly has a fantasy of how this scene will play out and might respond violently should her reaction vary from the script in his head. You can never be too careful, even in the public setting of a crowded airplane, so she does her best to play along and humor him.

She must have grown weary of her position, because she stretched and used her feet to push her carry-on bag under the seat in front of her. She took a last sip of her juice and set it on the small tray between them. She stared at Buck's glove-leather boots, the ones he had worn the day before. Chloe's eyes traveled up to his smiling, expectant face.

Her reaction was more than worth the wait. She folded her hands and drew them to her mouth. "Oh, Buck," she whispered. "Oh, Buck."

"It's nice to see you, too," he said.

Boop.

4. Keep him talking, but stick to neutral topics.

As an experienced air traveler, Chloe is well aware of the most-effective, time-tested technique for avoiding unwanted small talk during a flight: just use the magical phrase, "Do you know Jesus as your personal savior?" She employs a similar tactic here, posing as a religious obsessive to keep her stalker off-balance.

Chloe quickly let go of his hand as if catching herself. "I don't mean to act like a schoolgirl," she said, "but have you ever received a direct answer to prayer?"

Chloe begins aggressively buffeting her stalker with religious questions, pressuring him to become a born-again Christian and to pray with her right then and there. She has taken the upper hand.

She is now in control of the conversation, but this is still only a stalling tactic. She still needs to find some escape from the immediate situation, to establish a safe distance from which she can plan a way to deal in the long-term with her stalker. Meanwhile, she's getting a clearer, more disturbing picture of the depth of his obsession. Just yesterday Buck had described himself to her as a secular skeptic, yet now he is saying that he will consider converting to her newfound religion and even to attending her local church, 1,500 miles from his home.

Boop.

5. Call for help.

Be prepared. Plan ahead so that you always have some way of contacting help if you need to do so.

She stopped a passing attendant. "Can I give you a message for my dad?"

"Sure. Is he captain or first officer?"

"Captain. Please just tell him his daughter has extremely good news for him."

"Extremely good news," the attendant repeated.

Until he boarded the plane that morning, Chloe had no way of foreseeing that Buck would begin stalking her, but she is not caught unprepared. She and her father had already established a coded communication system. "Good news," is her code phrase to her father for "I need your help, come quickly." Her message of "extremely good news" is an emphatic 9-1-1 emergency distress call. By using such code phrases, she is able to summon help without allowing Buck to see her growing discomfort and fear and without causing him to react defensively or unpredictably.

Boop.

6. Go away somewhere safe; do not remain alone

Chloe's father arrives. He is friendly and polite, but quickly inserts himself in between his daughter and her aggressor.

He shook hands with the writer and expressed his pleasant, but wary, surprise. Chloe reached for his neck with both hands and gently pulled him down to where she could whisper to him. "Daddy, could you and I sit back there for a couple of minutes so I can talk to you?"

The pilot takes his daughter to an empty seat several rows away and sits with her a bit. She is noticeably upset by now, but safely away from her stalker.

A middle-aged couple across the aisle leaned out and stared, brows raised. The captain noticed, straightened, and headed toward the cockpit. "My daughter," he said awkwardly, pointing at Chloe who smiled through her tears. "She's my daughter."

Having removed his daughter from immediate danger and enlisted the assistance of the couple across the aisle to ensure that she is not left alone with her stalker again during the flight, the pilot returns to the cockpit to contact security at O'Hare. They will be there to greet Buck when he arrives in Chicago and to arrange for his return to New York.

Boop. This concludes side one. Please turn the cassette over to hear a different take on these pages from Left Behind. (Which will be posted shortly.)

(Note: LaHaye and Jenkins' disturbingly skewed notion that Buck's obsessive behavior is charming and romantic is amusing, but please do not regard the above as actual good advice for how to deal with an actual stalker. Real stalkers aren't funny. Here are some real safety tips from End Stalking in America and some more info on stalking from A.W.A.R.E.)

Comments

[A Texan in Bavaria]

Beautiful.

[Jesurgislac]

Brilliant.

[Chris]

Bedazzling.

[twig]

Boffo!

[Kenneth Fair]

Bewitching.

[Jon]

Personally, I think Cleo should have gone for the high heel into the instep and a knee to the groin. Buck might have actually felt "energized" enough to write a story after that.

Jon

[Keith]

I'm beginning to wonder Jenkins doesn't have Asperger's Syndrome or something. Has this man ever met any humans before? Does he in any way understand how humans behave?

Here we are, more than 400 pages in and no one has had even the slightest human reaction to anything. Either L&J's opinion of us unsaved heathans is so low that they think we're inhumane monsters or that neither of them have any real grasp of narrative verisimilitude. Even hack writers can manage a fairly convincing reaction now and again, even by accident; it's just the law of statistics. There's only so many ways a person can react to any given situation and even if you just spin the wheel of stock human emotions, you're bound to land on one that is plausible, even if just by accident. But not Jenkins. All these characters act counter intuitively to every situation they are in. it's maddening.

[Catherine]

Buena

[MikhailBorg]

Bang on!

[josh]

Bewildering

[pyramus]

Am I reading this correctly? Someone sits in an airplane seat and doesn't look up when her seatmate sits down? Doesn't evince even the tiniest atom of ordinary human curiosity? Sits with her head turned, staring out the window, doesn't look up for the pre-flight safety demonstration, doesn't look up at the flight attendant who comes around to make sure the seatbelts are fastened and tray tables are in their upright, locked position? Holds this position for what must be a minimum of half an hour? (Chloe must have a neck made of iron bands and rivets.) Doesn't even look up when her seatmate speaks to the flight attendant? (Didn't she recognize his voice?)

I'm flabbergasted. Even after reading every single one of these Left Behind postings, I never could have guessed that LaHaye and Jenkins could have so little understanding of how people behave in the real world. It's almost as if the writers had set out a list of scenes and events that had to checked off, with no heed as to the sense or motivation behind any of them.

Oh, wait....

[cminus]

Bully!

(A double-duty entry: Theodore Roosevelt's catchphrase for Fred, and the dictionary-standard version, creepy passive-aggressive subcategory, for Buck the Stalker.)

[Jos]

Oh dear. I had so hoped Chloe would continue to be Token Normal Human Being for a bit longer, but "Oh Buck, Oh Buck" rather shattered those hopes.

And did we miss Chloe's conversion scene somewhere? I mean, if she's still supposed to be Rational College Student Girl why is she talking about religion yet again? You'd think she'd be a bit tired of it after her father constantly barraging her with the topic.

[Dude]

Bravo!

[Elmo]

I'll bet Buck has a Popeil Stalk-O-Matic.

[bulbul]

Bitchin'.

[patter]

"Oh Buck, Oh Buck"

He misunderstood. She wasn't saying his name.

[Dash]

I had so hoped Chloe would continue to be Token Normal Human Being for a bit longer, but "Oh Buck, Oh Buck" rather shattered those hopes.

Don't give up, Jos. There are many ways of saying "Oh Buck, Oh Buck."

For example, a person who, upon returning home, finds that Fido has raided the garbage and left it strewn across the living room may well say, "Oh Fido! Oh Fido!" But Fido will not assume therefrom that the person is lost in adoration of his wonderfulness.

[DN]

Boop!

[Ian]

Bad Mother- (shut yo' mouth!) I was talkin' about Fred's post.

Have you flown on the new 777? In first class, the seats are in these little bed-pods which are walled off from each other. L&J have provided a good argument for barriers between seats, however much it reduces elbow room. That or ejector seats.

Fred's a simple kind of man, but no one understands him but his woman. (Fred Clark!)

[Robb]

I've got the hugest smile on my face right now imagining the scratches & pops of the melodramatic lite-orchestra soundtrack that this film strip would surely have. It's like I'm transported back to elementary school...

Fred, you've made my day - moreso than even on other Fridays.

[Dan]

But you know, (spoiler alert) they end up getting married and all, so it's okay. His stalking pays off, giving hope to stalkers everywhere. Especially stalkers for Jesus!

[daniel]

Bella

[jamoche]

Holds this position for what must be a minimum of half an hour?

And still manages to have drunk all but the last sip of her juice.

Most of the writers I know will occasionally act out a scene just to make sure the physical actions make sense.

I'm also curious what's so brow-raising about a pilot coming to talk to a passenger who calls him Daddy - oh. That last word kind of nailed it, didn't it?

Bangin'

[Abelardus]

Bravo, Fred, bravo!

[Ken]

Best Review Yet

[damnedyankee]

Bareback!

Er, Benighted!

(well, someone's got to do it...)

[Dash]

Bodacious!

[damnedyankee]

Bada-bing, baby!

[damnedyankee]

Am I reading it wrong in thinking that Fred is posting two LB Friday posts today?

[Jon]

That would seem to be what he said. Two LB posts on one day? Is it my birthday already? Am I dying and receiving a wish from some helpful charitable foundation?

[pyramus]

And still manages to have drunk all but the last sip of her juice.

Missed that bit!

How did she request and receive the juice without looking up?

"Chloe sat glowering out the window as the flight attendant stopped at Row 7. Without looking up, Chloe sullenly asked for some orange juice. Still staring out the window, she stretched her arm out backwards across Buck's face, grabbed the juice, and took a resentful sip. It was all Buck could do to keep from biting her hand."

Or something like that.

[mmack]

Fred,

First off, thanks for bringing back so many grade school memories with this post, since I too remember educational filmstrips and tapes that ended "End of Side One. Please flip the tape and continue." The only way this post would be better is to read it in Troy McClure's voice ("Hello, I'm Troy McClure, you may remember me from such filmstrips as The Stalking of Chloe and How to Recognize the Anti-Christ").

And as for Chloe's response to Buck (bwamp chicka bow bow, bwamp chicka bow bow), I can only respond with an episode from my own life:

A few years ago, I was dating a woman, K, who IMO was at a point further along in our relationship than I was. One weekend about a month after we first started dating she told me that she going out of town to visit relatives of hers. Late Saturday night of that weekend I got a phone call from her.

K: "Hi, I'm back from visiting my aunt. Can I stop by to see you?"
Me: "Sure, where are you?"
K: "In my car on your driveway."

Rest assured my immediate response was not a lovestruck "Oh K, Oh K!" It was more of an awkward pause to find words while in my mind I heard "Holy F@ck!"

And that's a response to someone I wanted to see at the time.

[Praline]

Bootylicious!

Also, re Damnedyankee, *Blushes*

'He wanted to be discovered'???

I'm sorry, but if you're going to that much trouble to get a girl's attention, you don't get to fantasise that it's really all about her finding you.

Even if your intentions are honourable, you ought to be aware that you're moving things along at a pace that might alarm her. You really ought to begin by assuring her that you're not a threat to her, rather than standing there gawping.

Personal story where I was in a vaguely similar situation: I met my boyfriend five years ago, at the party of a mutual friend. We hit it off tremendously and he asked me out the same evening; I accepted. At the end of the evening we parted ways, with assurances that he'd get in touch to arrange a date. The party was in Cambridge, we both lived in London, and, as coincidence would have it, we both got on the same train home.

Now, I didn't know that until we'd been dating for several weeks. The reason? He saw me getting on the train, thought, 'Hey, there's that girl I asked out! I'd really like to talk to her - but hang on, that's a bit intrusive. After all, we're stuck on a train; she couldn't get away if she wanted to. That wouldn't be fair of me. She agreed to let me e-mail her; she didn't agree to talk to me on the train. I'll stick to what she agreed.'

That was thinking like a gentleman.

Buck's over the line getting on the same plane at all - certainly getting in the next seat. If he was really stuck on this whole plane business, rather than just calling her and asking her out like a normal man, he should have got two seats, one beside her and one somewhere else, and let her decide which one she wanted him to sit in. But even if he wanted to make a romantic gesture, he should make it a proper gesture. Why hasn't he brought flowers? A box of candy from the duty-free - or even a cookie, if he thinks she'll still like him after being reminded of that incident? A bottle of non-alcoholic champagne? Turning up, going down on one knee, holding out roses and saying, 'May I share this journey with you?' is coming on strong, but it's at least making an effort to please. Standing there gaping like an idiot is just uncouth.

[aunursa]

Jos: And did we miss Chloe's conversion scene somewhere? I mean, if she's still supposed to be Rational College Student Girl why is she talking about religion yet again? You'd think she'd be a bit tired of it after her father constantly barraging her with the topic.

Chloe's conversion happens at the end of this scene, where she prays with her father.

[Twiki]

Beedie-beedie-beep!

[aunursa]

Praline: But even if he wanted to make a romantic gesture, he should make it a proper gesture. Why hasn't he brought flowers?

Oh God! There's the awkward "the flowers are in the trash" dialogue concocted for the sequel Tribulation Force.

[M Groesbeck]

Bon.

[damnedyankee]

Chloe's conversion happens at the end of this scene, where she prays with her father.

So the plane is taking Chloe-the-recognizable-person away? Now I'm sad.

[Kayte]

Awesome.

And if yet another posting follows later, then my cup just flat-out runneth over.

It amazes me how the cardboard cutout "characters" in this interminable book seem to have memorized my grandmother's advice to young men and young women on how to behave.

And she was born in 1894.

[Ursula L]

I would just like to draw everyone's attention to the most wonderful line of this wonderful post:

"This concludes side one. Please turn the cassette over to hear a different take on these pages from Left Behind. (Which will be posted shortly.)"

A thousand cheers, today is a double Left Behind Friday!

[Kayte]

Awesome.

And if yet another posting follows later, then my cup just flat-out runneth over.

It amazes me how the cardboard cutout "characters" in this interminable book seem to have memorized my grandmother's advice to young men and young women on how to behave.

And she was born in 1894.

[LMM]

I'm beginning to wonder Jenkins doesn't have Asperger's Syndrome or something. Has this man ever met any humans before? Does he in any way understand how humans behave?

I got there first, a few months back, during the newsroom scene in which it became clear that the authors lack a standard theory of mind.

My argument: L&J both are Aspies, if they don't have high-functioning autism. Both are obsessed with religion; additionally, one of them is obsessed with flying and the other with phone calls. I think this is the only way one can explain this book.

[Doctor Science]

We're showing our age, folks. My kids (one of whom is in college) have never seen an educational filmstrip. When we tell them about mimeographs, they're as fascinated as if we were describing flint-knapping.

They learn PowerPoint in third grade.

[chaos_engineer]

I'm beginning to wonder Jenkins doesn't have Asperger's Syndrome or something. Has this man ever met any humans before? Does he in any way understand how humans behave?

It took me a while, but I finally realized what these books would be if they were well-written.

When I was a kid, I read George Gamow's science-for-laymen book, "Mr. Tompkins in Paperback". It's written as a collection of short stories; typically the Mr. Tompkins character falls asleep at a science lecture and has a vivid dream that illustrates some of the major points.

In one of them, he dreams that he's in a world where the speed of light is 20 miles per hour and relativistic effects are part of day-to-day life. He witnesses a murder from a moving train and reports it to the police. This leads to a brief argument between two policemen about whether testimony from a moving frame-of-reference is valid.

From a "story" standpoint, that scene doesn't work. We never learn anything more about the murder. And the argument between the policemen seems contrived; it's pretty basic stuff that they would have understood intuitively if they'd really grown up in that world.

But of course this isn't intended to be a story with realistic characters we can identify with...the fictional elements are just there to add some light entertainment to the underlying science.

It's the same with "Left Behind". It's not about identifying with the characters; it's about what the world might look like if it had been created by a grotesque parody of the Christian God.

In fairness to Gamow, his counterfactual is more interesting...relativistic effects really do happen; it's just that we don't get to see them in our day-to-day lives.

Also, Gamow's writing is tighter. It looks like this whole airplane scene does nothing to illustrate any of the points L&J are trying to make. If Gamow had written the scene, a monster scorpion might have come onto the plane and poisoned the flight attendant in the middle of the safety demonstration.

[MikhailBorg]

My kids (one of whom is in college) have never seen an educational filmstrip. They learn PowerPoint in third grade.

Ahh, so they're losing ground then?

[dale]

Bathos!

[Abelardus]

Wait, so I heard right? Fred's gonna post another L.B. dissection today? Because a double yolk would be wonderful.

[Rob]

mmack –

I've done this and had this done to me, both by girlfriends and just plain old friends, but, and I think this is very important, the surprise guest always came bearing gifts. Sure, maybe you're wearing the same underwear you've had on for three days, and you've got a deadline in about fifteen minutes, but who doesn't like presents?