Yeah, it's tough to keep a sense of humor...
I work in Emergency Operations and Homeland Security here in Newark, so I know folks like these...the nature of their job makes them a little more paranoid and nervous about the comic than other folks. It's not easy. Too many times we've had to deal in Newark with people who smelled gas fumes in a building, which forced us to evacuate the place, and bring in the guys with the fancy meters. Result, no gas.
Other times we have had packages pop open in post offices and mail rooms and spew white powder all over the place, and in go the guys in moon suits to find that some prankster has mailed sugar to scare the bejabbers out of his enemies or just the postal guys.
And, of course, we have to shut down buildings and subway lines when someone leaves their purse or their groceries or their handbag in a corner or on a subway seat. My wife got stuck in a subway train under the Hudson River for two hours by a canteloupe.
These are the times we live in. I am reminded of the panic and rumors that afflicted the American defenders of Hawaii after Pearl Harbor. There was no panic or hysteria during the attack or the immediate aftermath, but that night and for the next few days, a lot of people went to pieces. "Enemy planes" were reported everywhere. A sampan off Oahu became the Japanese invasion fleet. A kite in a tree was a Japanese paratrooper. American planes from the carrier Enterprise landing at Ford Island were shot down by "friendly fire." A barking dog on the shore was supposedly sending a coded message to the Japanese. A blue light blinking behind Pearl Harbor was thought to be a spy's lantern. A dozen GIs moved in to find a farmer using a regulation blue light while he milked his cows, and the "coded message" was caused by swaying palm fronds.
Other defenders, after repelling the attack, ran out of emotional gas. A major burst into tears and said the islands were doomed, and had to be sent stateside for recovery. A Congressman called up the White House in hysteria, saying the West Coast was indefensible, and demanded battle lines be established in the Rocky Mountains. There are aspects of Stephen Spielberg's movie 1941 that are accurate in their depiction of the panic at the time.
Consequently, it's tough for guys whose jobs are to be suspicious and alert to terrorist threats and other calamities (don't forget that we have our own supply of domestic bomb-makers and nutters bent on destruction) to maintain a sense of humor about these stunts.
70 years ago, the New York Police Academy test had a question on what an officer was supposed to do if he saw a woman in a Roman toga leading a horse down Fifth Avenue. The answers varied: arrest her, ticket her, cover her up, but the right answer was: "Ignore it. It is probably a publicity stunt." That test measured officer applicant's common sense.
Sometimes, in the face of the unbelievably horrific news and events we have witnessed since 1939, it is hard to remember that.
