the list

THE LIST


First things first, I would like to heartily thank Eugene for his very generous donation. But wait! He not only pried open the wallet in a vain attempt at subsidizing my wonderfulness, he did so with verve and humor. He was “giving 5% since 10% is so hard”, giving reference to my last plea to all my minions to tithe me 10% of their paychecks ( his donation was in an odd dollar amount, plus an odd cent amount, giving the illusion of a strict accounting for the required amount ). Thanks, Gene, for the books I’m going to order on Amazon ( the Crash Course guy put his teachings into a book ), and for the smile.

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Ding dong, the ex is gone! Ex-wife #4 has departed the domicile of her own accord. After a month and a half of me pretty much ignoring her, the ex moved back in with her daughter who lives 300 miles away. Now I can sleep much better at night since the fold out bed was very uncomfortable. And save on alcohol I was buying ( which will now go to wheat ). We both tried valiantly, but I for one had my doubts a year ago the relationship had much of a chance of surviving. Sometimes there is just too much water under the bridge. And this most assuredly proves that Baby Jesus loves me. I imagine right about now he is looking quite sternly over his shoulder, “Jim, you are my favorite, but be warned that I’ve now given you THREE chances to get rid of this wife. Don’t try my patience by pushing your luck and inviting her back again”. I look sheepishly down at the ground, shuffle my feet, get all red in the face, and whisper, “Yes, Sir”. Damn, I thought we were bros.

There he is all shaming me and such.

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At the suggestion of a kindly minion I ordered the book “Pitcairn’s Island”. He made it sound like the ultimate portrayal of man’s inhumanity to man. I guess my bar is set too high as I just wasn’t shocked, dismayed or even titillated. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very good book. I recommend it and I’m glad it was pointed out to me. I just didn’t think that the actions depicted were out of the ordinary. Perhaps they were in the Thirties when this was written. But to modern sensibilities, used to geriatric rapes, 3AM Ninja SWAT raids over small bags of purely medicinal marijuana, waterboarding ( or even the fact that torture can be discussed rather than immediately rejected ), compounds of children being burned, indigenous citizens chocking on their own sewage water after infrastructure of their oil producing region has been destroyed, compared to all that, it just seems normal that some white boys would try to enslave their minority local population. I don’t even think the skewed ratio of men to women or alcohol was as much of the issue over the conflict as, simply, the people were bored. Here they were, literally in paradise, little effort needed to feed them ( the only hard work was on the initial arrival clearing land and erecting shelter ) and they get bored and create drama for themselves. Bitches cheating almost immediately, etc. You can bet that in Bisonia, democracy shall not prevail. People are too stupid to vote.

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Okay, I got all excited last night about renting a DVD. Aliens land and a group must try to survive. Hmmm, try to survive. Key words pushing my buttons. I even popped up some Jiffy Pop ( is it me or does that bitch simply not want to pop all the way? ), a rare occurrence since at $1.25 each they are an extravagance. The movie, “Skyline”, while not too hideously bad, certainly wasn’t a survival movie. It was a “King Kong meets Alien meets Independence Day meets my ass trying to be a love story”. I mean, come on! Big humongous alien dudes climbing up condo buildings and being strafed by jets? Alien dudes sucking out the brains of people to insert into their little alien baby dudes to give them life? If these bazillions of alien craft came to Earth to harvest human brains to be able to carry on their race, how did the aliens hatch in the first place? A bit of a chicken and egg problem. But what got me to bring this up, other than wanting to use my $1.07 rental fee as a business expense on my taxes, was that hidden out from attacking aliens in a high rise, no one thought to fill up any water containers while the power was still going! I understand that under the stress of big alien dudes attacking, that detail might escape your notice. Which brings up this articles purpose- make a friggin list beforehand.

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I always used to make fun of those glaringly obvious lists at ones workplace about dealing with emergencies. You know the kind. Binders full of laminated sheets, “in the event of a robbery, lock the doors to prevent evidence being destroyed, call police”. “In the event of a fire, exit building and call fire department”. Of course they are easily mocked. How do you call the fire department if you are outside? The 7-11 across the street took out their pay phones because of crack dealers taking orders ( and if you think that an Indian national will allow you to use the stores phone, you’ve never been stranded out on Highway 80 one hundred miles from the nearest town with trailer tire flats and the stores payphone broken, and thank goodness a passerby cell phoned AAA for you but the tow truck could only install the spare on one side which went flat as you were waiting for the tow truck and you had to wait for the morning to buy a can of Fix-A-Flat from the same jerk and pump up the tires with a bicycle pump and drive very slowly and stop at every off ramp and put some more air into the tire and pull into town three hours later and find that Wal-Mart doesn’t carry trailer tires and then go over to the regional tire chain but they are closed on Sunday ).

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But the emergency books provide a very essential service. While you are panicking, rushing around unable to think, there is a guide to spell out for you what you need to do. I’ve been working a graveyard shift, been assaulted ( thankfully in a minor altercation rather in a robbery ), hit my head on the cement and if it wasn’t for another customer calling the police I would have just staggered around in a daze. It wasn’t like I was brain damaged ( some might argue the point ), just confused and shocked. I couldn’t think. You can’t expect to be able to do the simplest things when confronted with a new disaster. If you’ve ever evacuated a flood or fire before, you have everything squared away. Bug out bag, prioritizing what to save or abandon. But if it’s your first time, you have no idea what to do. When big aliens attack, wanting your brain ( and who would want a human brain, more likely to be influenced by hormones rather than rational thought? ), you are totally freaked and don’t stop and think the power will go out and the water will stop flowing from the faucet. You just want to keep from being brain sucked. You don’t plan ahead, you react to immanent life threatening danger.

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Chances are good aliens won’t attack. And you can’t expect to make so many lists that every contingency is covered. But one generalized list, and then event specific lists should be easy enough. In my case, light security for one example. With my foil covered bubble sheets and the blankets covering the windows, plus my bright enough but certainly not blinding LED lights, you can’t see any light coming from my windows. Except for the small shower window, which isn’t covered. Will I remember to cover that window come the time? And dismantle the solar powered front door outside light? Then you add in other details such as bringing in the outside water storage or the ammunition in storage. The freeze dried foods ( ALL trash picked over the years, never bought ) are outside. Will I need those for a short term hole-up? Should I move the solar panels to the roof to hopefully prevent theft ( I have them ground level now as they need the dust removed from them almost daily )? You see where I’m going with this.

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The small details count. List them now while you can think clearly.

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The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
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By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there.
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