Temporary Archive: Suzanne Brockmann's Message Board

When I was 19 I was working at a dental office and my boss often took time off and gave all the staff the day off but left me alone to man (woman) the office so someone was there to make appointments or accept deliveries. The man who drove the truck who picked up our dirty linens and brought clean ones made a delivery on a day I was in the office alone. He was a married man but had always been too friendly to us girls in the office but had never really crossed any lines. However I went into the back office to write him a check and he came up behind me while I was writing the check and grabbed my breasts and in very graphic words told me what he wanted.

My boss kept a 9mm German Luger (hope I got that right---he claimed he brought the gun home from Germany after WWII and it was his pride and joy) in the top desk drawer and without a thought really I reached over and opened the drawer and picked up the gun, said two dirty words and since it was a swivel chair I turned around and said "LEAVE." The guy started crying. I swear this is true. He apoligised and said he would lose his job and his wife and he didn't mean to scare me and please don't report this to the cops, etc...

The stupid part was I was totally clueless about the gun. I knew my boss kept the safety on and I had no idea how to get it off. I did take the clip out of the gun after the delivery man left to try to figure out how to release the saftey so I could pull the trigger. Very dumb because my boss asked me the next day if I checked to make sure a bullet wasn't in the chamber (?- I am working on memory now so I think that is what he called it)---I had no idea that after I removed the clip that there could have been a bullet in that gun. Or maybe he said it to scare me and it worked. He yelled at me for weeks and said the guy probably would have left if I just said no and that I could have killed him or he could have turned the gun on me or that I could have killed myself.

When my boss called the delivery company the man had quit his job after he confessed to his boss that he had hit on a woman who totally freaked out! They said they had received complaints that he had sexually harassed other women but it had only been verbal---this was before the days of sexual harassment being a reason to fire someone.

If that man had really meant to hurt me and he knew his way around the gun things could have been very messy. I never did learn how to use a gun but I never touched one again either.

Could I just tell any future would be assailants to F-Off! I've had practice with that one even while in panic mode. : ) BTW, my husband has always refused to have a gun in the house because he said he knew I would shoot before asking questions and it might be him coming home unannounced.