Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down( A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse)

by Griffin, Forrest

  BE READY WHEN THE

  SH*T GOES DOWN

  A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse

  FORREST GRIFFIN

  AND ERICH KRAUSS

  with Illustrations by Jason Lee

  Dedicated to my friend, Big John Grantham

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Parental Warning: ORTBIYAAMBTA—1435

  Forrest, What the Fuck Are You Thinking?

  You Must Pass This Test . . .

  Chapter 1 - Prepare Now, Part I: How to Be Ted Kaczynski Without All That Unabomber Crap

  Chapter 2 - Prepare Now, Part II: Don’t Forget To Pack Your Toothbrush

  Chapter 3 - How Shit Will Go Down

  Chapter 4 - Surviving the Initial Shit Storm

  Photographic Insert

  Chapter 5 - No, You Can’t Invite Your Friends—They Will Trash Our Utopia

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  Forrest Griffin’s Survival Guide to the Apocalypse

  Note to Reader

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Forrest Griffin and Erich Krauss

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Parental Warning: ORTBIYAAMBTA—1435

  Now that I am a famous author, it has come to my attention that there is no rating system for books. There is a rating system for movies, CDs, and even video games, but absolutely nothing for books. I am sure the reason for this is that kids today are far too lazy to read, even when the subject matter is filthy. In any case, this has to change. When I did the promotional tour for my New York Times bestseller, Got Fight?, I cannot count how many eight- and ten-year-old kids came up to me and had me sign their copies. Of course I signed their books because it put money in my pocket, but it was very inappropriate for kids that age to be buying my book. Having lost some sleep over the whole matter, I felt the need to come up with a rating system and apply it to this book.

  As you can see above, I have given this book a rating of ORTBIYAAMBTA—1435, which is an acronym for Only Read This Book If You Are A Male Between The Ages of fourteen and thirty-five. Simple and to the point, am I right? The reason for such a harsh rating is due to all the dirty language, which includes but is not limited to “ass clown,” “ball juggler,” “cum catcher,” “dick sucker,” “eel stroker,” “felcher,” “goo-gargler,” “hippie,” “ignoramus,” “jack-off,” “kitty-kicker,” “loser,” “motherfucker,” “narcissist,” “ogler,” “penis,” “queef,” “rubber,” “stupid,” “teetotaler,” “urethra,” “vagina,” “wannabe,” “X-ray-glasses-wearing-peeper,” “yodeler,” “zelcher” (like felcher, only with a Z . . . Don’t ask). Notice how I used one swearword that starts with each letter of the alphabet. Genius, am I right? (Note: I do not want to get e-mails saying that I did not use every one of these words in the book. They are all printed above, so yeah, they have all been used.) Anyway, I figure that if you are fourteen, you have probably heard most of these swearwords before, so reading the book won’t corrupt your mind too terribly. Your parents might still see you as their little angel, but we both know the truth. Fourteen is the new thirty. If you are under fourteen or over thirty-five, you have most likely heard these words, but the context in which they are used might either give you nightmares about the “bad man” or cause uncontrollable vomiting, depending on which end of the spectrum you fall. In any cause, you’ve been warned—now go buy your copy! Just don’t read it if you’re not the right age.

  CAUTION

  Do not under any circumstances burn this book for heat. It is preferable that you die of hypothermia before you destroy this book.

  WARNING

  This book was written for idiots by idiots.

  NOTE

  This book was not tested on animals. It was tested on migrant day laborers. Hey, fuck you, they signed the waivers. No, they couldn’t read English, but whose fault is that?

  WARNING

  To protect the innocent, the names, dates, and places in this book have all remained real. Only the facts have been changed.

  WARNING

  It is important that you understand that absolutely no research went into this book. Well, that isn’t entirely correct. Erich spent about twenty minutes on the Internet, but that was mainly to get the correct spelling of names, which I am pretty sure he still got wrong.

  WARNING

  There are only four warnings, one caution, and one “note” in this book. There should obviously be a lot more. Please do not sue me.

  MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

  In the event of the apocalypse, if the information in this book does not save your life, Forrest Griffin will personally refund every penny you spent on its purchase, including the tax. (Disclaimer: Money must be collected in person, after the apocalypse. In the event that you are dead, your family members are not allowed to collect the refund, even if they bring your corpse to Forrest’s house in a wheelbarrow.)

  Forrest, What the Fuck Are You Thinking?

  So a lot of you are picking up this book and thinking, “Forrest, you’re a fighter, and not a particularly good one, what the fuck do you know about surviving the apocalypse?” Or perhaps you’re muttering quietly to yourself, “Why should I take advice on surviving the end of the world from a guy who gets hit in the head on a regular basis?” Or maybe you’re saying, “Sure, Forrest is the guy I want helping me battle it out in a nuclear wasteland, but he’s not necessarily the guy that I want teaching me about water purification.” Fine. I can sort of understand your skepticism, so let me explain.

  I’ve learned many lessons during my time on this planet, but at the age of, oh, let’s say elevenish, I learned a very important one. If you read my last book, you’re probably thinking this has something to do with the time I shit myself while bungee-jumping at Dollywood, but you’re wrong. Although that little experience clued me in to the fact that you probably shouldn’t eat Mexican food an hour before you dive off a fifty-foot tower, the lesson I am talking about is one of the biggies.

  The event that changed my perception of the world and, even more importantly, the people in it, occurred on a beautiful spring afternoon in Augusta, Georgia. School had just let out for the day, and I was heading home with my five best friends in the world. All of them were traveling on their bikes, and I was on foot because my bike had a broken chain. Being fatherless at the time, I had every intention of going to one of my friends’ fathers to get the needed repairs, but fathers have a tendency to help out their own kids first. In any case, I was huffing it on foot.

  Everything was as right as rain as we made the journey from the schoolhouse to our neighborhood. I kept a decent pace, and my friends did tricks on their bikes to ensure I never fell too far behind. We were telling jokes, laughing, and making plans for the upcoming weekend. But just as we turned onto the street that led to all of our homes, I noticed the face of one of my friends change. It went from the happy-go-lucky face of a typical eleven-year-old to the panic-stricken face you see in horror movies just before a person gets mutilated by a chain saw. At first I thought he was grimacing for my benefit because he was looking in my direction, but then I noticed that he was actually looking over my shoulder.

  That’s when I heard the snarling, growling beast. Still running, I looked behind me and saw the biggest fucking dog in the world, foaming at the mouth and sprinting in our direction. This rabid rottweiler turned our casual trip home into the Tour de France. All of my friends lifted their asses off their seats and stood up on their pedals, pus
hing with all of their strength. At first our scattering confused the irate and rapidly approaching dog, which I later named Cujo. He went after the bikes first, but as my friends pulled ahead, he decided to conserve his strength and turn on me.

  It was just like one of those documentaries you see on the Discovery Channel where a lion storms into a pack of wildebeests. At first the lion just sort of runs around, but then he quickly hones his laser sights on the weakest, most pathetic creature in the group. In this particular case, I was the pathetic creature because I wasn’t currently in possession of a bike.

  I sprinted for home, and with the insane mutt having been momentarily distracted by my friends, I had approximately a ten-yard lead, but I could hear the rapid clicking of his long-nailed paws drawing nearer. By the time I could see my house in front of me, my fear had risen to an unimaginable level. If I hadn’t pissed just prior to leaving school, my pants would have been soaked. I made this high-pitched piglet squeal that I had never made before and have never made since. Each time one of my feet touched pavement, I was certain it would be the last. Eleven years old and this was it, the end of my life.

  In my terror, I peeled my eyes away from my home and turned them on my group of friends, hoping they would somehow save me or at the very least offer me some type of reassurance that everything would be all right. Never in my life had I needed the support of another human being so badly, and I knew that if there was anyone I could count on being there for me, it was my trusted amigos.

  Instead of seeing the support I so badly needed, I saw something that will be forever etched into my frontal lobe. My blood brothers, mi hermanos, my partners in crime were pointing at me, laughing their asses off. And I am not talking about smiling or even chuckling—each and every one of them was bent over the front of their handlebars, mouth wide open, laughing from the belly. The kind of laughter you get when someone you absolutely hate trips in the school cafeteria and stomach-surfs on their food tray down a flight of stairs, except it was Look at Forrest get chased by that rabid dog!

  I sprinted across my front lawn, and surprisingly I made it to the front steps. I leaped up them in a single bound and skidded to a stop on the front porch. With trembling hands, I threw open the screen door and reached for the knob. The killing machine was right behind me now, but I had made it. I’d escaped a brutal mauling that if videotaped would have undoubtedly been played over and over again on the nightly news, perhaps even led to stiffer dog laws in the United States, until . . .

  The fucking door was locked.

  Cujo lunged, but with the screen door having already swung shut on my backside, he bounced off. The instant he landed, he came right back at me. Although my face was pressed firmly against the wooden door, I could feel his hot breath on the back of my legs. For a brief instant I thought that perhaps I was protected, but that’s when Cujo put those fantastically long claws to use and began tearing into the metal screen mesh. I tried reaching into my pocket to get at my keys, but there wasn’t enough room. I was literally sandwiched between the door and the screen.

  In less than a minute I not only felt Cujo’s claws tearing into my skin, but I could also feel his wet nose. His game plan became overwhelming apparent—he was attempting to tear a large enough hole into the screen to get his head through, and once he managed that, my legs and butt cheeks would essentially become Alpo.

  The fear became so great that something snapped in my mind. I don’t want to say I blacked out because I was still awake, but my body somehow started working on autopilot. When my mind refocused, I was clinging to one of the thick, circular pillars that traversed our porch, seven feet off the ground. To this day, I have no recollection of making the four-foot journey from the door to the pillar or even climbing the pillar. To be quite honest, I don’t even see how I could have covered that distance without getting mauled.

  In any case, I was clinging with all my strength to this pillar and the rabid rottweiler was angrier than ever. It was just like one of those Tom and Jerry cartoons where Tom is clinging to something several feet off the ground, and a pit bull is jumping toward him and snapping its massive jaws.

  After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably closer to ten minutes, my mother pulled into the driveway. She saw me clinging for dear life to the pillar, screaming and crying, and then she saw the dog at my feet, leaping into the air in an attempt to reach my flesh. Like a soldier who rushes blindly into the battlefield to save a comrade, my mother exited her car, grabbed a thick branch off the ground, and then stormed up onto the porch. She arched that stick back like a baseball bat and then swung for the hills.

  The branch connected with the top of Cujo’s head. Unfortunately, my mother’s weapon of choice consisted of 90 percent mildew, causing it to evaporate upon impact and cause no harm to the dog whatsoever. It did, however, make Cujo realize that it had a much more accessible meal. It turned on my mom, and while she swung her half-size bat to keep the dog at bay, I leaped off the pillar, pulled my keys from my pocket, and sprung open the front door.

  I don’t know how my mom did it, but she managed to fight off the dog and back up through the front door. Once we were both inside, we slammed the door and fell to the floor in exhaustion, both of us dripping blood. My wounds most likely required stitches by today’s standards, but due to the fact that we didn’t have medical insurance, my mom broke out her kick-ass first-aid kit, cleaned the gashes with some peroxide, and then threw butterfly bandages on those suckers. The dog had clearly been rabid, and at the very least we should have been given some antibiotics, but somehow we both avoided dying horrible deaths.

  The attack left me with some decent-size scars on my legs and ass, but instead of reminding me of the horrors of that day, they remind me of the important lesson that I learned. The lesson is this: When the shit goes down, even your best friends in the world will abandon you, and most likely do so while laughing their tits off. Whether it’s a dog attack or the apocalypse, no one is going to save your sorry ass but you, so you better be fucking ready.

  I’ve spent the last twenty years making sure I’m ready, and now I’m going to make sure that none of you get swept up in fallout. Now you might be thinking, “Forrest, by teaching everyone your secrets, aren’t you making it harder for you yourself to survive when the end of the world comes?”

  The answer is no, I’m definitely not. Because we both know that if you’re reading a book by me, clearly learning from books isn’t your thing. So yeah, I’m not that worried. Besides, worst-case scenario, I’ve got my mom to protect me and I’m pretty sure not even this book will save you from her.

  You Must Pass This Test . . .

  This Time I Mean It!

  As I’ve mentioned in all of my high-profile television and radio interviews, my previous book, Got Fight?, spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. So what’s the problem? Everything that becomes popular too quickly becomes unpopular just as quickly. The clothing brand No Fear ring a bell? No, probably not—see my point. This is not because the product sucks in any way1—it is because of you, the consumer. When an army of nerds is seen toting a certain product between the chess club and front lawn of the high school where they receive their afternoon beatings, normal people get turned off from purchasing the product. Personally, I want my books to be read by only the cool crowd,2 so I am going to have to be a lot more selective this time around as far as whom I allow to purchase a copy. In the test below, you will find three types of questions.

  The first type question will rate your manliness. I know what you are thinking—“If I passed the manliness test in your last book, Got Fight?,3 can I go ahead and skip this test?” The answer is no. After all, a lot can happen in a year. A woman could have removed your balls and placed them in her purse4 or you could have finally gotten around to buying that two-hundred-dollar pair of jeans you always wanted. You must prove to me that you are a man now, not sometime in the distant past.

  The second type of questio
n will judge your worth as a human being. Essentially, do I even want you surviving the apocalypse? Remember, I have knowledge you need, and I want to make sure you are worthy of receiving it before I slip you my large baton (of knowledge).

  The third type of question will judge your Forrest Griffin Survival IQ. It has nothing to do with trying to stuff various-shaped blocks into various shaped holes. In my world, I am only concerned with stuffing one object into one hole. That’s right—the object is knowledge and the hole is your brain! But before I give you this injection of knowledge, I must ensure that you have the necessary cunning, craft, and ingenuity to properly receive it. If you are not ready and I give it to you anyway, it could blind you or kill you or both. Both would be the worst.

  This test is more important than the SATs or that test you took after watching the Kmart employee theft video (by the way, I scored a hundred percent on my employee theft test at Food Line—try to top that, bitches!). It will determine whether or not you are allowed to read the book that will help you outrun the death that scorches the face of the earth in the not-so-distant future. So, I highly recommend reclining in your chair, sipping on your chamomile tea,5 and really thinking each question through before answering.