Reasons to invest in pepper spray

So I’ve written on here about my homeless friends, the lovely men who tell me good morning every day. They’re still around and I still enjoy them thoroughly. However, with daylight savings comes the fact that when I leave work (and within a couple weeks, also when I arrive at work) it is dark and scary. My strategy is usually to have headphones in. I find that scary folks are less likely to talk to/at you if they think you cannot hear them. However, I like to be aware of my surroundings in these situations so I don’t turn my music on until I get on the bus. One especially pleasant gentleman last night told his friend that he was going to “bend her over the stairs and fuck her till she cries”. Her is me. And me was scared. I pretended I didn’t hear him because I didn’t want to encourage any sort of interaction. Resisting the urge to run my ass up the stairs I just stared straight ahead and strolled on. Last week I was coming into work in the morning and I nodded and said good morning to a man while crossing the max tracks. He started saying all the usual things and turned and followed me to my building. He tried to follow me inside but there was a security guard inside the lobby. I found out recently that one of the women who works with me was slapped by a homeless woman right outside our office. She just walked up and slapped her in the face. So basically, I’m a little uncomfortable with this situation. I’m thinking about buying some pepper spray. We have security in the building that we can call to walk us out but they need at least a half hour notice and we don’t always leave at the same time. We’re going to have a ladies meeting at work today to discuss how to make the situation safer but I really don’t know what can be done. In my paranoia I looked up the crime statistics for Old Town/China Town. This did not make me feel better.