Subject: Re: Shelley's reaction ...
From: phz@cadence.com (Pete Zakel)
Date: 1991-02-15, 12:06
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <2149@novavax.UUCP> hal9000@novavax.UUCP (Computer Science) writes:
> >Why couldn't Shelley have simply crashed through the plastic like Leo
> >did??  I mean, wouldn't that have been the next logical exit after she
> >found the doors were locked?

It is really easy to figure out what to do in an emergency when one is
sitting comfortably in front of one's computer screen.

Shelley's actions were completely consistent with human (and her) psychology.
If you don't go to the trouble of planning alternate escape routes and going
over them occasionally, when an emergency happens they just don't come to
mind.  The brain tends to go into "auto-pilot" and only normal exits are
turned to.  This is one reason why it is a VERY GOOD IDEA to get all the
members of a household together once every month or so and go over emergency
escape routes and general emergency procedures.

The entire time Shelley has been living in that house, she probably has
trained herself to think of the plastic walls as real walls and not something
to walk through.  And Leo would probably have beat her (in his "better" days)
if she had treated them otherwise.  It's this kind of thinking -- that walls
are something that people don't go through -- that resulted in a cost-cutting
measure in San Diego (if I remember correctly) where a new prison was built
with walls of plasterboard instead of solid concrete.  I bet it seemed like
a reasonable idea at the time...

-Pete Zakel
 (phz@cadence.com or ..!{hpda,versatc,apollo,ucbcad,uunet}!cadence!phz)