The 1987 movie Adventures in Babysitting illustrates what teenagers, or anyone for that matter, should not do if one wishes to avoid a survival situation. Or, if you happen to be in a survival situation, it illustrates what not to do in one.

One, if you take a cab to downtown Chicago, make sure you have enough money for a round trip.
Two, even if you drive another person's car, be sure it has a spare tire.
Three, don't leave home or place of employment without your purse.
Four, if you wear glasses and are in a bus station in downtown Chicago, don't remove your glasses and lay them down where someone could steal them.
Five, if you get mixed up with an organized crime ring, don't take anything of theirs. They will be hunting for you to get it back.
Six, even if a street gang member calls your babysitter a witch, stay out of street gang affairs.
Seven, while awaiting rescue because you didn't have the money for a round trip cab, at least have cash stashed away for a hot dog.
Eight, if organized crime members are chasing you and you use an elevator to escape, don't press the buttons with chocolate-covered fingers.

Jeanette Isabelle

Man, I wish I would have know these yesterday...

How about we branch out? What survival lessons can we learn from other movies?

Jeanette Isabelle

Even better, read real life accounts of actual survival situations, including those that did not go well. Movies are inevitably scripted

But that's what makes movies, such as Adventures in Babysitting, funny. This group of teenagers does everything wrong during a survival situation, such as get involved in street gang affairs.

Jeanette Isabelle

Scripted = fiction, imaginary (to some degree or another)

I prefer reality, although accounts may be biased or slanted, so careful....

You are free to establish you own universe....

A Christmas Story: Never say the F-word in front of your father, even if you lose all the lug nuts.

I would not call that scene a survival situation. Getting one's tongue stuck to a pole would.

Jeanette Isabelle

An all along, I thought Adventures in Babysitting was just a funny and entertaining movie.

There's a lot to be "learned" from many movies if that's the goal. For example, do not expect your 15 round magazine to hold 5381+ rounds like in the typical cops and robbers movie. And don't expect your gun to automatically cock itself every time an adversary walks around the corner. But do expect your place in hiding to be given away to the bad guy because every time you even look at a knife sitting on a bed it goes "ZZZiiiiiinnggg!!!"

Most movies are designed for entertainment, not instructing. They do the stupidest stuff in movies.

All the more reason not to follow their example.

Jeanette Isabelle