A course in disaster preparedness: How to die with dignity.

Disaster Preparedness. That is what my day today revolved around. Red Cross came and gave my department a course in how to prepare for a disaster. This is not the kind of thing someone as paranoid and overly alert like me needed to attend.

Floods. This was our first order of attention. What do you do when there is flooding? Run like hell, climb up on high stuff, get in a  boat made out of wood and scotch tape, what! what! I don't know!. Answer:  You prepare for the flood before it happens. Oh.Now that  is how you mother fucking do it.*fist pump*
 I was unaware until today that Pennsylvania is the number one state for flooding issues. This alarmed me, because I have no idea what to do in case of a flood emergency other than try not to get wet. I disregard all of the warnings and watches on the news about potential flooding. Mostly because I disregard moss things that make me uncomfortable and that I can do nothing about. Flood preparedness seemed like an impossible task and something that would never happen to me. I know better now.

The first thing you should do to prepare for an imminent watery disaster is to have a kit ready. Your kit can consist of anything you want. Granola  bars, cans of creamed corn, band-aids, marbles, the first season of Gilmore Girls. Whatever you feel like will get you safely through the flood. After you have assembled your kit you must next discuss a plan of action with your family members. If you do not have family members than disregard this step. If you do happen to have more than just yourself to look out for than you need to get everyone together for a group huddle. Talk about what do if the matriarch or patriarch of the family dies. Which one of the children will become the absolute leader? Everyone knows a group must have a leader with absolute power. Once this is established you must then appoint either another child, or family pet to be second in command. After these vital steps are completed you can move onto step three successfully.
Building a boat. What could be more important than making your own boat to row yourself to safety? Nothing, tha'ts what. Hammer some pieces of wood together, along with some plastic bags and pieces of furniture. tape up any holes, and voila! you have your boat. If you do not have room in your kit to store the hammer or any other kinds of tool, don't worry about it just toss them in the trash. DVD's and candy are much more important.  After all, you cant eat a hammer.  You must next pick a designated place to hide from the flood. Higher ground is a good idea. Make someone who is stronger than you pull your boat up a hill. Once you have achieved high ground status get into your boat and wait out the flood.  It does not matter if where you are is flooded or not, so long as you are in the boat. This is all about being prepared.  Most importantly, make sure to keep your kit dry, no one wants to eat soggy granola. Consider yourself a survivor. Good job.

Our next opponent up to battle is Fire:

Flooding is the pussy of disasters compared to fire. Fire will burn you, and burning hurts. So basically fire will hurt you. Be careful. There is no kit that will save you from a fire, because fire has the ability to burn  up your kit. It also has no regard for humans or animals, or electronics. You should be visibly scared at this point because pretty much, fire has no soul and no conscience. It will torch a baby and not care. Your favorite pair of jeans. Torched. Your new stainless steel kitchen appliances. Torched. It mocks your attempts at safety. It blocks all exits out of your home and wants to seal you in what is now a smoky cavern of death and dishonor. Fire does not care. There is nothing you can do to protect yourself against it except install a few little baby smoke alarms. Maybe, not putting cigarettes out on the rug, and also turning off the stove also can count as prevention methods. Other than that, you are at fires mercy. May I suggest sleeping with one eye open. Maybe both eyes open. That way you can get a head start if you see or hear fire coming. In that case you have three seconds to jump out of a window or run in circles screaming " why me, why" Either way,  the choice to survive is in your hands. Fire will probably win though so don't knock yourself to hard if you die.

Blizzards:

If you live on the east coast then you know that blizzards pose a constant threat to your survival from December to April. A blizzard starts off innocently, even pretty. Everyone loves snow flakes. Everyone does not love however, snow flakes accompanied by gale force wind that scratch the skin off of your face like a love starved Freddy Kreuger. As the blizzard gathers force it starts to turn what was beautiful, angel scented snow flakes into stellar plated ninja stars shredding your skin and blinding you if you one of those weaklings who succumbed to your lazy ass eyes and started wearing glasses.

 This is a storm that could give a shit about ruining your weekend plans to go to pizza hut, or if you'r pregnant and going to give birth at any minute so you need to make sure the road you take to the hospital that is 25 miles away is clear because your baby is probably breached and you can't do a home delivery. Blizzards are actually opportunists and wait for these moments specifically before they let loose their white wintry bowels all over everything in their path. I have never witnessed any natural disaster with such disregard for peoples well being. This bitch just lets loose. After covering your steps, and front yard, and compact car in 40 inches of snow, you have to go shovel it out.  It just keeps saying  "fuck you." Shoveling can cause cardiac arrest if you are unhealthy and generally spend 17 out of the 24 hours we have in a day in a sitting position, this is most Americans, so beware. It's like the snow is trying to make up for the fact that it looks so non threatening and it has to give itself at least 1 bad ass property. There is nothing you can really do to prepare for a blizzard. You can try to go to the super market to buy some extra food so you do not have to resort to canibalisim while trapped in your  house for 3 days. You need really superior survival instincts and a low moral fiber. You will have to fight your way through the market like a Ninja on PCP, stealing frozen turkey's and loaves of bread. TONS of loaves of bread, and milk, so much milk. Because, all you will crave when stuck in your house for 3-4 days is DAIRY! Make sure you get out your war paints so if you do attempt to go to the food store everyone there will know what clan you are from. Families have mistaken each other for members of a different clan and stabbed them to death with safety scissors for trying to "steal" food from their carts. God Speed to you you undertake this endeavor.

Disasters are unavoidable. I think that trying to prepare for them is bullshit. You can't prepare for mother fucking nature. She wont let you. Her whole shtick revolves around the element of surprise. Because with this, she can scare the shit out of you leaving you helpless, possibly naked, and alone with no candy. I will be in the nearest corner shuddering in fear from now on. Unprepared, and constantly worried.

Top 5 things I am afraid of that number 1 thing being EVERYTHING.

I really hate hearing sounds.Especially when I am alone. This morning there was a thump-y sound coming from the front room. It sounded like a psychotic animal getting ready to break down my walls and scream " OH YEAH" like the Kool-Aid man, but instead of  the "heres a nice refreshing beverage for you, please excuse the pieces of plaster...really tends to be unavoidable when you burst through walls kind of oh yeah.  It would be  " OH YEAH! TIME FOR ME TO FEAST ON THE BLOOD OF NON VIRGINS AND PEOPLE WITH PERIODONTAL ISSUES HATS OFF MOTHER FUCKERS! " Shit, thats got me written all over it.

It only takes one small out of the ordinary sound for my mind to go on the fritz and make my imagination center start working over time.It starts pumping out scenario after scenario of sadistic ways that evil things will kill me. I really  have a problem with stuff I can't see. Like spirits, and ghosts, and demons. My dad informed that it was possible for anyone to become possessed. This did not help that he said this to me while we were watching the Excorcist. From that moment on I was so serious about never summoning demons or dabs, or captain Howdy,or evil dolls that kill you in your sleep, dead celebrities, dead anyone, talking to much about dead people to the point in which they think you are trying to summon them so they just appear and start torturing you because they think thats what you want. I really try hard not to ever do any of that. Except this one time last summer after my Dad passed away. I was like" well maybe I can like contact him via some sort of spirit passage way". Even though he was like " NEVER CONTACT ME VIA SPIRIT PASSAGE WAYS COURTNEY". I have pretty terrible listening skills though.

 I read up on contacting the dead online.There, I saw something that said you could think you were contacting a loved one but really it was a spirit who was a good faker and would be pretending to be my dad. I would be lulled into a false sense of security  and be all " Hey Dad, how are things, I miss you tons, sometimes I sleep with my shirt up and my belly buttons exposed because I get bored, is this weird?"  Meanwhile the spirit/demon is gathering information on you and just waiting for the right time when you are at your most vulnerable. Since spirits enter you via the navel, it just learned valuable information and is waiting for me to go night night.  Then when I am  good and comfortable, it burrows through my navel like a demonic bullweval wreaking havoc and creating a general environment of chaos. Not Good.

This really has been an issue for me since childhood. I was always very afraid of the things I could not see and I was really afraid of the Devil. It did not help that I went to Catholic School where they just loved to talk about how bad and scary the devil was and how if you did't eat all of your vegetables or if you took off your socks and threw them behind the couch instead of in the hamper he would steal your soul and throw you into a river full of boiling lava. He would also chase you with pitch forks for fun and maim puppies in front of you to make you cry. I wanted no parts of this at all. Everyone always commented on how good I was when I was little. It was not because I liked being "good" it was because I was afraid if I did anything wrong I would be sent to hell. Theres motivation for you.

So, pretty much I was haunted by Devil'sh imagery as I'm sure you were already saying to yourself. " Oh I  bet she is haunted by devilish images constantly". Well, you are right I was/ am. For many years I had to sleep with ALL the lights on. I am talking, television, radio, night light, ceiling fan light, book light. I was seriously not fucking around with the dark. If I tried to be brave and turn out the lights, I would then see shadows of claws and "666" on my wall. That meant the Devil was in my room and he was coming for me and I was going to die and this was it here he comes. I never got much sleep. Vigilance is a constant. If I had a scratch on me that I failed to notice right away, I would assume them devil was scratching me in my sleep. I am very serious  I thought he was scratching me. In my sleep.  Yeah, I probably should have been in therapy at an early age. So this was my life, sleeping in a room bathed in un-natural light, scanning for demons, and wearing long sleeved pajamas in the summer to protect myself from devil scratches. Yep, just your normal average child.

It worsened rather than just being some silly " oh remember your Lucifer is scratching me phase". "So glad you are over that". Fraid not Mom. I constantly thought there were demon-y devil- y things everywhere. I seriously fucking believed this. My parents did nothing to dissuade this  thinking either. My mom would come in my room when I was at school and write things in the dust on my mirror. One day she wrote " I see you". It was subtle, and it must have taken me a few days to notice it but when I did I flipped my shit. I read it a few times, I though, no this cant be happening. He cant be trying to communicate through my mirror? " Is this really real? " I was stunned and horrified I ran screaming to my parents " MOMDAD THE DEVIL IS WRITING THINGS TO ME OH MY GOD WHY IS THIS HAPPENING, AM I GOING TO BE SET ON FIRE?" My parents found this to be hilarious, and even when my Mom explained to me that this was not really the Devil that it was just her being all evil and funny. I still did not believe them. I figured the Devil had now possessed my Mom and was just trying to trick me into thinking I was safe. There was no where to turn.

I started locking my bedroom door which really displeased my parental units. My Mom was all " Jesus Christ, no, don't do that, what if there is a fire and you need to get out and no one can get to you because the door is locked , Courtney, listen to me, LISTEN no more locking the door" My retort " OH MY GOD MOM, SERIOUSLY? ARE YOU REALLY ASKING ME TO LEAVE THE DOOR UNLOCKED SO THAT  I CAN BE POSSESSED! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME, DO YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I DON'T LOCK THE DOOR... DAMNATION MOTHER. THATS WHAT WILL HAPPEN AND I WILL BE SCRATCHED UP IN MY SLEEP BY A WILD DEMON DEVIL CAT. THANKS A LOT I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME."

My mom thought I was out of my mind mostly. Really I was just overly anxious and scared a lot form being bought up in a chaotic unstable environment. ( I later found this out in therapy) so, really this was almost sort of normal. almost. As I got older,I moved onto being afraid of more sophisticated things like Serial Killers. Yep, I went balls out on this fear. I had my little OCD self running around the house like an ADD meth addict checking doors, and locking them, then unlocking , then locking again just to make sure the lock worked. Then if I was not satisfied I would have my Mom lock the door from the inside while I went outside to see if I could get in.. I never could, and my Mom was like " why was I blessed witch such a retarded child" then after checking the windows, and back door one more time. I went to bed.

It did not stop there though, I completely disregarded my Mom's orders not to shut and lock my door. I barricaded  myself in my room. My thoughts were, the more things I had against my door the less likely a serial killer would be able to get into my room and rip out my organs with a grappling hook. Made sense to me. I locked it, and I would push blankets in front of it, towels, my night stand sometimes my dresser. Whatever I could move with out making to much noise as to alert my parents that I was doing something weird. This sort of helped calm me down but not really. I tried to talk my Dad into sleeping on the couch a lot, that way he could hear if anyone or anything was trying to get in. Sometimes this worked, but mostly he slept in his bed like a normal person. I would finally pass out and then it would happen. I would wake up at 3 am and have to pee. I tried so hard not to have to but I had not yet reached the stage where I found it acceptable to urinate in  my bed because it was safer than braving the hallway and going to the bathroom. I was close though. I would first crawl to the end of the bed, put my ear to the door and listen. I did this for a few minutes because I am sure Serial Killers are to smart to be loud, so I had to be extra vigilant on this part. Then I would use one eye to peer out of the crack of my door jam and try to see if anything was out there. It did not look like it, but it was dark, so I could never be 100% about this. I waited until I was almost peeing my pants then I slowly opened my door and crept down the hallway then made a mad dash for the bathroom.

Once I got to the bathroom safely, I had to repeat the process. I listened, I tried to see if anything was coming, I sometimes passed out on the bathroom floor from listening for to long. Made yet another mad dash to my bedroom which would have to be re searched for potential life ending things. If it looked safe, I could then go back to sleep. If it did not look safe I would run back down the hallway of doom into my parents room and sleep on their floor.  Better to die as a group then all alone. This goes on even now. Except my hallway is a lot smaller and I no longer live at home.I can't really run I just sort of fall into the bathroom really quickly. There is no lock on the bathroom door so if I ever hear anything unusual I hold onto the doorknob really tightly just in case anything should try to come in and attack me. Good to know I gained some sense of reality as I've grown older.

Yep pretty much, it's really exciting living in a state of constant and total fear. Almost like a fun  house, except not fun, so sorry that was a bad analogy.