Yup, I have been one sheltered little chick-a-dee.

I do try to be civil and grown-up about it, so its not as if I have developed a twitch that I get every time a dirty-looking guy holds out a cup. But what I have done, is developed this "Street Sense Radar," SSR if you will. Unfortunately, this radar system does not enable me to have a sixth sense that could help me evade gangs or give me Matrix-like skills to defeat a mad purse-snatcher. SSR is merely the internal alarm system that goes off in my head when little sheltered Jenn sees something that reminds her of a bad scary boogieman in a movie. A very helpful tool, obviously. Never had it been used to its fullest extent until just a few days ago.

Get ready. It's so dramatic I am gonna tell it in the present tense.

A man in a dingy dark overcoat steps onto my Underground tube car and stands ominously facing the two rows of seated passengers. SSR starts to blip at a reasonably audible volume inside my head immediately ... blip É blip É He shifts restlessly from foot to foot, nervously shaking his right hand up and down inside the depths of his pocket. Hand in pocket. Big pocket. Blip blip blip. But, outwardly, I maintain "city girl" composure. I put on my British tube riding face and attempt to stare passively in front of my feet like I have seen so many other passengers do.

"Excuse me," he shouts is a gruff voice, baring his yellowing teeth for all to see (well actually just for me to see, because I can't maintain the passive staring thing for more than 15 seconds).

"Excuse me, ladies and gents, need a single moment of your time." Blip blip blip! SSR goes off the charts and starts transmitting pathetic, drama queen thoughts into my little Southern girl brain like, "Ohmigod Jenn, you have seen a movie like this. The big, scary guy says, 'I need a moment of your time,' and then says with an evil laugh 'Mwah ha ha ha the last moment'!" I am sure that at this point I was staring directly at him with eyes wide enough to be examined by a farsighted optometrist. But SSR had sent signals directly to all of my muscle cells, which made it impossible for me to move.

"Alright then," he continues, but I don't hear him. I am acting in my own little Broadway-style death scene in my head: "Good-bye, mommy and daddy. Mike, I am so sorry I wont be there to watch you grow up into a great guy. AG, I love you. Kate, please be a strong and graceful pillar for my poor mom at my funeral É" Of course, this morbidly dramatic little monologue is intermixed with the cliché flashes of a London Times headline: "American girl is taken as ritual sacrifice to an Underground Madman!"

I struggle to hear over the sound of the SSR alarms and all the voices in my head to concentrate on what the scary man is saying, if only because it might be the last thing I ever hear. Dum dum dum.

"Ladies and Gentlemen. I am sure you are aware that a life on the street is not really any life at all. I would appreciate any help you could afford to give me. Just a spare pence could mean the difference between hunger and health. I am much obliged to your generosity if it is in your power to give it."

Then he paused, looked about, and saw no one reaching for change, or even acknowledging him. So, he moved towards the door throwing at us a casual, "Thank you for your time. Have a lovely evening!"

And with that, he was gone, leaving me stunned and chagrined on the train. Of course, no one else knew about my inner SSR trauma. No one knew that I had completely overreacted to what turned out to be the world's most polite and well-spoken panhandler.

Or did they?

Was my Southern-American-suburbanite naiveté splayed out for all to see? Am I really so incapable of handling situations that don't feel safe to me? Or is it that these jaded Londoners have just lost the ability to be shocked by anything? Which is worse? To have and overactive SSR, or to travel on silently, staring passively just beyond your feet, with no system of radar to alert you to the humanity around you?