My Midnight Moral Dilemma

At exactly 12:00 midnight on Tuesday Jay called me to say that our car had overheated and he needed me to pick him up after he dropped it off at the repair shop to be looked at in the morning. He'd been working on it all evening, and finally decided to take it out for a test drive. I wasn't asleep either though. We are both kind of night owls. Next I was faced with the dilemma of
A. Should I leave James sleeping in his crib and lock all the doors? OR

B. Wake him up, and take him with me to the not so nice part of town where the auto shop was located?

On the one hand, if I chose A, I would be risking leaving my child alone in a house at the mercy of possible abduction, fire, earthquake, carnivorous rabid raccoons, etc, etc. However, I would not have to wake him up. That's a big plus to me.

On the other hand, if I go the B route, I risk possible car-hijacking with my son in the back seat, and I would have to wake him up and then put up with a cranky child the next day. But at least we'd be together.
In the end I decided to keep the family unit together and take James with me. The next moral dilemma was even tougher. What is my weapon of choice for driving into Gangsterville at midnight? Here are my options: Jay's hand gun, my bayonet knife, and my pepper spray.
Okay, I don't actually know how to load Jay's gun, and the legality of carrying a loaded weapon in my car is kind of a gray area for me. So the gun stayed home. Knife- too slow and messy. So pepper spray it is!

I have had this fantasy from years past when I first started buying pepper spray (the current canister is number 3 I think). Suppose I were jogging along, with spray in hand, and some thug jumps out in front of me. Here is what I would do- I would yell "Suck Mace!!" spray him in the face, kick him where it counts, and run like hell. The catch phrase "Suck Mace" is especially important to me. I have never had the chance to live out this fantasy.

Anyway back to reality. I scooped up James and deposited him in his car seat, locked all the car doors and put my pepper spray on the hair trigger setting and set it in my lap, and went off to get Jay.

Have I ever mentioned how paranoid I can be?

I pulled up to a stoplight and a couple of hoodlums were eyeing my ride from the corner. I showed them what I was packin' and they decided this was one bad-ass chick they didn't wanna mess with.

Okay that never happened. I have been reading too many Stephanie Plum novels lately.

The pick up went off smoothly. We came back home and I decided whilst standing in the driveway to fire off my spray just to see if it still worked. I held it out at arms length and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I pressed it again- nothing. It took me a good 5 or 6 tries before I figured out the trick to it. Apparently there is a trick to it. That hair trigger is not as hairy as I thought. This caused me to rethink my fantasy. How potentially embarrassing to yell "Suck Mace!" and then have nothing happen. I have been carrying around this false sense of security for the past three years. Well now I know. So watch out all you perps, because I have mace and NOW I know how to use it!