At first glance, and for the dozen thereafter, the thought of a lion entering my home is paralyzing. I have been witness while at the San Diego Zoo to an active male lion who made it clear that flash photography agitated him, and I can’t imagine a heated round of fisticuffs between us without the safety of a chain link fence going well for me. Were I to encounter a female, my case would be lost before it began; she’s out to hunt, and I do indeed have some meat on me
Keeping the above in mind, I’ll speak only about my dealings with the male lion. What I’d do if he got into my home depends entirely on where I am. If I’m outside my home at the time, I’m staying out of my home until someone—probably from the Zoo—shows up to take care of it, and going the extra mile once the incident has passed to fortify my home against such threats. What works against a lion surely works at least somewhat against other more manly beasts. If I’m inside my home, it depends on my location. If I’m in the bedroom, getting out through the window isn’t an option for various reasons and my best chance is to arm myself with a guitar or a sword or both. If I’m in the bathroom, I suppose my best bet is a combination of the plunger and the bathmat—one to guard, one to confuse. If I’m anywhere else, my best option is to grab a chair and act as the old lion tamers did. Granted, I know next to nothing about that, but I can back out (and take my sweet cat Sophie with me) the door and let the lion have the run of the place for a while. In all cases, I’m relying to some significant degree on my fight-or-flight response activating in me some of the carny instincts my church’s founder cultivated in his time as a lion tamer. I know how the movies tell me how to hold the chair and little else.
Or, as would happen in the best-case scenario, I find him tranquilized and give him loving pets until the Zoo shows up to take him away where he can be cared for in a proper manner.
With care,
~ Grigori