You Can Take a Girl Outta New York City...

....but you can't take New York City paranoia out of a girl.

Call it a twisted urban mindset, but thanks to the stories of assaults and gruesome crimes presented for our daily viewing pleasure on the 5pm news or re-enacted 24-7 on dedicated cable networks, I started to wonder as someone then living in America if I could ever avoid becoming a statistics.

When would it happen?
How would it happen?
Who would be my grim reaper?
Someone I know or a stranger?

Taking the subways late into the night, even walking less than three blocks home from the bus stop sometimes felt like huge risks. But worse was knowing that even inside the four walls of your home safety was not a guarantee. So how did one exist? With rules and strategies, and of course, prayer.

When I moved to Prague I was glad to leave those sort of thoughts behind. Well, in a way.

No matter how safe I feel and that violent crime is pretty low in these parts, every once in a while I still find myself gripped by random thoughts of carnage.

I was at work late Wednesday afternoon when a man called about the closet I had put up for sale online.

Could he see it this evening, he asked. It was too short notice, I told him, and recommended the following evening. I gave him the dimensions of the closet, mentioned that it would need to be taken apart and that I had tools for doing so if he decided to buy the closet. I have my own tools too, he said with a laugh. We set a time—8:00pm, Thursday.

So tell me, why did I walk into my apartment later that evening and immediately thought:

Oh my God, are you nuts?! You live alone and you just told a complete stranger—a man with TOOLS, girl, TOOLS!—that he could come to your apartment at night. He could be some nut job trolling the online expats forum looking for female sellers who live alone. What if he has POWER tools? Perrr-fect for you to get dismembered with! CallhimbackCallhimbackCallhimbaaaack!

I sent a text message rescheduling for a DAY-time meeting. He called the next day to say he had found a better deal.

Okay. I may have lapsed into temporary insanity Wednesday night, but I think it was a needed jolt of realism that though Prague is a safe-r city I should not completely throw away common sense and take unnecessary risks.

What say you if you're also an American living abroad? Do you have to remind yourself to be guarded?