Title: I'll Take Chloe and Her Stun Gun on My Team Word Count: 383 Summary: Self defense is just as much a matter of preparation as anything else. Just ask Chloe O’Brien the super geek-ess from the hit show “24” who used a stun gun on a recent episode to thwart unwanted advances from a stranger when she was busy helping Jack save the world. Keywords: self defense, stun gun, 24 Article Body: There she was after leaving Bill Buchanan’s house, sitting in the bar area of a hotel, having successfully eluded the police during curfew in LA, when out of nowhere it happened! A semi drunk patron who had been sitting at the bar approached her not once but twice and just wouldn’t leave her alone. So what’s a heroine supposed to do? Rather than be pestered to death she invited the jerk to sit down and to see what she was doing. She was in the process of using all kinds of high tech stuff to help Jack Bauer, the super savvy, super agent save the world. That’s when mild mannered Chloe O’Brien pulled out her stun gun and zapped the guy into unconsciousness. Not just once, twice. Yeah Chloe!! That’ll teach you to bother a single lady working on her top secret laptop in a bar. LEAVE ME ALONE! The mega hit TV show “24” is drawing to a close for this season and quite frankly I am not sure how millions of fans are going to survive the “off season” but we’ll find a way-maybe. We should all be so lucky to be that prepared to survive an unwanted approach by a stranger, but then Chloe is a trained counter terrorist agent or is she? Isn’t she just a computer geek-ess extraordinaire? Who knows? But she sure handled herself very well that night and in front of gazillions of viewers. Seriously, one of three of us in our lifetime will have some brush with crime whether it is assault, rape, domestic violence, burglary, home invasion whatever, it is out there big time. Why do you think prisons are so overcrowded? Is it the food? The atmosphere? It really is more of a question of when something untoward will happen as opposed to if it will. It is almost a certainty. Crime statistics show that women are more likely than men to be victims. The good news is that you can-just like Chloe-be prepared! Self defense is certainly part of the answer. Is it unreasonable to carry some kind of a defensive device-stun gun, mace pepper spray, whistle, or other personal alarm? Not when your life is potentially at risk. You can be prepared and survive.