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

by Griffin, Forrest

  Most of us still have the fight-or-flight instinct buried deep in our brains; we just struggle with its interpretation, which is what leads to panic or making the wrong choice. Luckily, in the civilized world in which we currently reside, we often get a second chance when we fail to interpret our instinctual signals correctly. However, the apocalypse will be the caveman days all over again, so it is in your best interest to start getting acquainted with what your mind is trying to tell you in times of stress.

  This can be accomplished by putting yourself in extremely dangerous situations where the only hope of survival is to make the right choice. For example, you can jump out in front of a moving bus. Your brain will undoubtedly send you a shit load of terrifying signals, but you must learn to interpret them correctly. If your instincts tell you to stand your ground and fight the bus, you are probably not making the right assessment. In such a situation, your only chance to live another day is flight.

  WHY YES, YOU CAN KILL SOMEONE WITH A PENCIL:

  WEAPONS OF OPPORTUNITY

  A weapon of opportunity is anything around you that you can use as a weapon (no, it couldn’t more self-explanatory). For example, as I sit here writing this, I can see several weapons of opportunity. I can use the pen sitting on the table to stab you in the eye, I can use the strap-on lying over in the corner to bludgeon you over the head, and I can even use the hot cup of coffee in my hand (yes, I only type with one hand) to blind you. However, if the cup of coffee in your hand happens to be an iced latte, not only would it be a terrible weapon of opportunity, but it would also make me question your manhood. If you threw that into my face, it would just piss me off. Another terrible weapon of opportunity would be a banana. You starting to see what I am getting at? I would love to have had this idea all on my own, but when I did a seminar at a Marine base, that is what they preached—weapons of opportunity. If you’re in a position where you need a weapon, a household object will do. If there is a knife, a vase, a shoehorn around you, turn it into a weapon. Remember, you never want to be in a fair fight if an unfair fight is an option (that line was all mine, I swear!).

  Obviously, this type of training will increase your chances of dying a horrible death and never making it to the apocalypse, but if all goes well and you hone your instincts, you will be well prepared for the end of the world. (Just kidding, of course, I don’t want you to jump in front of a bus. Besides, there is no way to hone your instincts—that is why they are called instincts.)

  To give you an idea of how to properly and improperly read your instincts, I will share a story with you from my drunken college days. I believe I was nineteen or twenty at the time, and I was hanging out in a bar that was notorious for serving minors. After a few beverages, the front doors flew open and cops stormed in, shouting about how they were conducting a raid for underage drinkers. My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and luckily I made the right choice. Instead of taking a swing at an officer of the law, I ran toward the emergency exit, kicked it open, and bolted out into the night.

  Two cops were standing there, ready to catch anyone who decided to skip out, and I was again presented with a fight-or-flight choice. I could have chosen to tackle one of them, which would have led to me getting beaten with clubs, Maced, kicked, and handcuffed, but again I read my instincts correctly. With a little shuffle of my feet, I avoided their reaching arms and then sprinted down the street with all my strength.

  After about four minutes sprinting at full velocity (that was drunk time, so it was probably more like twenty seconds) I was gassed out of my mind. Certain that a full-scale manhunt had been launched to find me (yes, I was drunk and paranoid), I began searching for a place to hide. The first location that jumped out was a fraternity house. Figuring that if anyone could sympathize with my predicament, it was a group of drunken assholes, I headed toward it. Huffing and dripping sweat, I opened the front door without knocking, ran into the living room, and then knelt down by the window so I could peer out at the street for cops.

  While I was huddled there, three frat brothers walked into the room, each with a plastic cup filled with beer. They looked at me for a second, I looked at them, and then I returned my eyes to the street.

  “What the fuck you doing in our house?” one of them shouted.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I returned without even turning around.

  “Dude, I said what the fuck are you doing in our house?”

  “Your mother will explain it to you when you’re a big boy,” I said, slightly perturbed.

  I heard a cup of beer drop and feet rapidly approaching me. By the time I stood up, all three of them were in my personal space, shouting at me. For the third time that night, I found myself in a fight-or-flight scenario. Outnumbered three to one, my reptile brain was sending me all sorts of messages. I probably should have interpreted the signals the same as I did on the previous two occasions, but for some reason I thought my brain was saying, “Hey bro, fuck this running shit. You need to fight these bitches. You got ’em, bro. Ain’t no tang.” Apparently, my reptile brain really likes clichés and is a frat-boy douche bag at heart.

  There were three of them lined up in front of me, and not knowing their names, I will refer to them as Dickhead one through three. Well, I saw Dickhead One pulling his fist back to hit me, and for some reason my drunken mind gave me the instruction to hit Dickhead One. So, that is what I did. About half a second after my fist bounced off his face, Dickhead Two crashed his knuckles into my cheek. Pissed off that I had just gotten punched, I socked Dickhead Two in retaliation. Immediately after my fist landed, Dickhead Three belted me one. Again, this angered me, so I punched Dickhead Three. A split second later, Dickhead One tagged me, and the vicious cycle began again. I hit Dickhead One, which prompted Dickhead Two to land his second shot. After I hit Dickhead Two, Dickhead Three hit me.

  Believe it or not, we went down the line like this for more than four minutes (again, drunk time—I have no idea how long it was in real time). With there only being one of me and three of them, I obviously got the worst end of the deal. It was kind of like I was playing a game of charley horse, except instead of playing with one guy I was playing with three. And instead of slugging each other in the arm, we were slugging each other in the face. Luckily, everyone sort of got tired at about the exact same moment and we stopped hitting each other. Realizing that it was only a matter of time before we all recuperated and the hitting began again, I reassessed my previous interpretation and ran. I bolted straight out the front door and sprinted my way home. Apparently, I didn’t learn much from this lesson because twelve years later when I stepped into the cage with Anderson Silva, my reptile brain told me to actually fight him. It wasn’t until I regained consciousness that I realized the correct response should have been flight, at which point I fled. It was obviously too late by that point.

  The moral here is that when your mind is sending you mixed messages in a dangerous situation, running is probably the safe choice to make. The only time you actually want to fight is when you are matched up with a much weaker opponent and actually have something to gain. For example, either fighting a mentally handicapped person in order to impress your girlfriend or fighting a child to acquire his satchel of sweets is acceptable. But other than these two scenarios, you pretty much want to run.

  LUKE

  Forrest is one of the few fighters who doesn’t have a nickname. But if he did, it would undoubtedly be “Tackleberry.” If you don’t understand this reference, go rent Police Academy.

  THE WILDERNESS IS JUST LIKE THE OCTAGON BUT WITH TREES

  You never want to bring your fists to a gunfight, but there will come a time during the apocalypse when the majority of ammunition gets exhausted. Granted that might take a long fucking time, but it is important to prepare for it nonetheless. If your goal is to become a badass fighter, there are dozens of exceptional MMA instructional books on the market, all of which are produced by Victory Belt Publishing (Erich is fucking shameless, plugging his o
wn company . . . what a douche). However, the chance that you will encounter a professional fighter during the apocalypse is slim.

  The majority of people you have to contend with will most likely be tough sons of bitches—after all, they somehow found a way to live long enough to see all the ammunition dry up—but they probably won’t be super dangerous in the hand-to-hand combat department. Although learning how to throw proper strikes and apply fancy submissions will not hurt you in any way, it is not high on your apocalypse-preparation to-do list. When it comes to fighting during the apocalypse, you want to focus on choke holds because they are the only techniques that allow you to turn your aggressor’s lights out, permanently.

  Below I have included two of the more effective choke holds that can be applied from the standing position. My suggestion is to practice these techniques as often as possible. Simply learning how to apply these choke holds is not enough—you must train them ritualistically. When they are applied improperly, you will fail to sever blood flow to your opponent’s brain and quickly gas out your arms, which puts you in danger. Personally, I recommend practicing them on drunk people in your local bar, and once you have them down, work up to moderately sober people. Trust me, applying an effective choke hold is not as easy as Sayid makes it seem on Lost.

  Standing Rear Naked Choke from Behind

  I sneak up behind Erich and wrap my left arm around his neck. If your opponent tucks his chin to his chest in an attempt to prevent you from cutting off the blood supply to his brain, which is probably a good tactic on his part, you can pull his head upward using your opposite hand.

  To apply the rear naked choke, I grab my right biceps with my left hand and then position the back of my right hand behind Erich’s head. To sever blood flow to his brain and give myself an immense amount of pleasure in getting back at him for constantly editing the shit I say in this book, I squeeze my arms tight.

  Guillotine Choke Off the Tackle

  Erich attempts the old-school football tackle, and being a good deal taller than him, I simply place my hand on his head. In addition to stopping his forward momentum, it is quite demeaning.

  Before Erich can elevate his head, I step forward and wrap the blade of my left arm across the front of his neck.

  To apply the standing guillotine choke, I clasp my hands together, drive his head downward using my chest, and pull my left forearm up into his neck using my right hand.

  FORREST FACTOID

  Ages ago I was in a friend’s bar in Georgia and some dickhead out in the street decided to chuck a beer bottle into the air. Being slightly drunk myself, I charged out there, took the guy down, and mounted him. I had no intention of busting him up—I simply wanted to prevent him from getting more out of hand and wrecking my buddy’s bar. After he calmed down, I walked back into the bar like a big hero. The encounter couldn’t even be described as a scuffle, but when I looked down, I noticed that I was gushing blood out of my foot. I was covered in blood, and everyone began looking at me like I just got my ass handed to me out in the parking lot. Apparently when we were on the ground, my foot rolled over the beer bottle he had broken.

  Learn from my mistake and pain. If you want to be an MMA fighter, you absolutely must learn how to grapple, but taking your opponent down shouldn’t be your first choice in an apocalyptic street fight. Unless the natural disaster that eliminated the majority of humanity somehow covered the surface of the earth with soft feathers, I would recommend doing everything in your power to keep a fight standing. Just think about all the rusty nails and jagged pieces of scrap metal that will be littered about. Do you really want to end up with that shit embedded in your backside? I didn’t think so.

  NOTE: As far as the guillotine choke goes, realize that you have just crammed your assailant’s head down toward your legs, and he still has two free hands to completely annihilate your groin with, which is most likely what he will do when he realizes he can no longer breathe and begins panicking. But don’t worry, you don’t need your groin—there will not be that many women around during the apocalypse anyway. And besides, pee tubes are not that bad.

  THE MAN CAVE

  Note: The “Man Cave,” in today’s society, is a stupid term for the room in which you keep your foosball table. During the apocalypse, the Man Cave will actually be a cave you live in. It will protect you from the elements and keep you safe from predators.

  When a fifty-kiloton nuclear bomb goes off, everything within a several-mile radius gets completely annihilated. If you are outside the immediate blast zone and you have built a fallout shelter in your backyard, your survival will depend upon your ability to quickly take refuge in it. If you are located ten miles from ground zero, you will generally have about thirty minutes before radioactive fallout reaches your area. If you are fifty miles out, you have about three hours. And if you live a hundred miles out, you have approximately six hours. The good news is if you are quickly alerted to the fact that a nuke went off, and you manage to speedily make it to your shelter, you only have about two weeks until the radiation drops to a survivable level. Granted it will be a frustrating two weeks—most fallout shelters do not have Internet access, which means no porn—but making do with just the bare necessities for a spell is better than dying an agonizing death.

  In addition to preventing you from sucking up large doses of radiation and growing a set of hairy eyeballs on the back of your head, a well-constructed fallout shelter will protect you from hurricanes, tornadoes, viral outbreaks, police search warrants, and alien invasions. Sure, most neighborhoods have community fallout shelters, but I highly recommend steering clear of these. There is always that guy who at the last minute begins banging on the door, wanting to get let in. And there is always that old woman who wants to obey said fuck-nut’s demand, jeopardizing everyone who was smart enough to show up early. Another problem with community fallout shelters is the smell. While the stench of your own farts doesn’t bother you too bad, other people’s farts smell horrible, and when you are in a confined space, they can make you physically sick. Personally, I’ve experienced farts so bad that I would have rather gone out into nuclear radiation than suffer through them. When you add crying babies into the mix, it simply isn’t worth it. Just imagine spending two weeks at your local DMV—that is what surviving in a fallout shelter is like. You will be much better off constructing your own shelter.

  The first rule with building a fallout shelter is not to tell anyone about your fallout shelter. If you go around running off at the mouth, every neighborhood shit bag will flee to your backyard when shit hits the fan. As a matter of fact, you don’t even want to tell all of your so-called friends. Douche-bag friends are like herpes—they tend to follow you around and ruin an otherwise glorious day. Even if they are not colossal douche bags, you still won’t have enough supplies to feed all of them. To ensure your own survival, you want to limit yourself to two, maybe three, other people. If you have a lot of children, you only want to take your favorite ones, or at least the ones that you think will have the best chance of helping you survive. However, keeping your fallout shelter a secret during the construction phase poses a problem. To solve this dilemma, I suggest taking everyone camping. Shortly after you get to the campgrounds (before you have to visit the awful outhouse and shit monster), disable their vehicles and leave. While they are out there trying to figure out how to get their vehicles going, race home and build your fallout shelter. As an added bonus, some of your friends or family members might die during their long trek back to civilization, which means fewer mouths to feed.

  However, if you do decide to prohibit some of your friends and family members from entering your shelter when shit hits the fan, it is very important to bring some type of radio or noisemaker to drown out their screaming and begging and banging as they perish from radiation poisoning and starve to death. Listening to their whimpering is horribly uncomfortable, and we don’t want any of that.

  Before building your shelter, you are going to want to purcha
se plans from a qualified professional. I could have offered you step-by-step instructions, but they would have undoubtedly led to your demise. However, I can offer a few tips in this area. The majority of fallout shelters should be built underground, and with limited space in your backyard, deciding upon its location involves some careful consideration. Obviously, you do not want to disturb your workshop, horseshoe pit, barbecue area, or the dirt patch where you and your buddies swill beer, so you will most likely want to backhoe your wife’s rosebushes and tulip garden. In addition to this, you will want to build at least two rooms. The first room will be your general living area, and the second room will be the “jail” or “time-out” room where you lock annoying family members. The spare room will also serve as the toilet.

  THE LIGHTS JUST WENT ON AT THE STRIP CLUB . . . YOU AIN’T GOTTA GO HOME, BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE (AKA GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE)

  Having a fallout shelter in your backyard can save you from dying from radiation poisoning or a rapidly spreading virus, but it will do very little to help you survive for the long term. After the initial shit storm passes, you’ll want to be prepared to get as far away from metropolitan areas as humanly possible. Sure, large cities are packed with food, ammunition, and every other luxury you could ever want, but if you survived, chances are others did too, and it will quickly become a battle of “who can get what first.”

  People will undoubtedly band together to form militant groups, and if the government is still around, there is a high probability the lawmakers will declare martial law. Every day you spend mulling around town, your chances of getting attacked increase. I’m not saying that you should bug out if a storm passes through your area, but if you’re listening to your portable radio in your shelter and you hear chatter about how entire cities have been laid waste, your best chance of survival is to find an isolated area in which to lay low (much like you do when a girl you “know” is pregnant). It is much easier to get out of town during times of chaos than waiting for a lockdown or full-blown revolution to occur.