4 Real Survival Guides for Wildly Improbable Situations

Like many people, I love to fantasize about terrible things happening to me. If a book promises that it'll teach me how to safely flip into a dumpster from a burning 20th floor or escape a submerged vehicle, I'll buy it. I buy survival guides for jungles, zombies, gunfights and have at least an academic understanding of what to do when over 200 kinds of animals bite me. If police saw my bookshelf, they wouldn't need a warrant to search my home for explosives and corpses. After I survived over 30 winters without ever needing to make an igloo or suck desert mud out of a sock, I realized I'll probably die with thoughts of wasted time on my mind. So I decided if I was going to be filling my brain with unlikely survival knowledge, it might as well be crazy unlikely. Please enjoy four of my favorite dumbest-case-scenario survival guides. Practical Psychic Self-Defense: Understanding and Surviving Unseen Influences by Robert Bruce One thing I know about danger is that it's mostly ghosts. I'm so worried about ghosts that for me, every day is Black History Month. That's why I was excited to find this book promising the secrets of mind combat against psychic monsters. The problem is, this book is about as practical as Japanese instructions on a Magnum condom. It's 320 pages of Robert Bruce bragging about all the spirit ass he has kicked. It's astonishing how few pages are devoted to how you as a reader can kick spirits, but Robert Bruce does mention his unmatched wealth of ghostbusting experience at least twice per page. If you believe anything he says, Robert Bruce is the most amazing make-believe warrior ever. If anything, I feel safer because I at least know there's no room in the astral plane for ghosts and Robert Bruce's psychic dick-measuring equipment. Robert Bruce has the undead so whipped that vampire movies are now about sparkling boys kissing each other. Ghosts Are the Answer to Everything For most people, ghosts are simply a way to sell night vision cameras to the stupid. But for everyone that Robert Bruce has met, they're a source of every tragedy and ailment. They cause acne, mental illness, tennis elbow and cunnilingus. Since that was the one that caught my eye too, here's the shocking testimony from a woman assaulted by a cunnilingual astral beast. This happened to her right after her husband had sex with her and then left to watch TV: I know what you're thinking. "She wanted sexual release? What was it, her birthday?" Then you probably thought, "Why would a woman still want something if she already got emotionless premature ejaculation from her husband?" And then it hit you, "A ghost must have gone down on her!!!" Nice work. Robert Bruce made the same diagnosis. A woman who craves an orgasm while her husband watches SportsCenter can mean only one thing: incubus. An incubus is a sexual spirit that often manifests itself as a "blunt tube-like structure." I imagine Robert described it that way because "giant ghost dick" didn't sound medical enough. As soon as I read about giant ghost dicks, I was glued to the book, desperate for any practical tips on defeating them before it was too late. I never saw any. I guess if an incubus wants to stick it in you, you bite down on a stick and start looking for a mop. I'm no paranormalist, but my theory is that Robert Bruce didn't want to develop a defense against incubus attacks. At the risk of making the ultimate astral burn, he probably rubs himself in the Durex Heat Lube of Agamotto before he goes to bed. Ghosts Are Pussies Fighting real ghosts seems fruity at best and made up at worst. Even in this book written by a hardcore, astral spider killing motherfucker, every case file seems like a fanciful idiot added the word "ghost" to their ordinary medical condition. Robert talks about astral spiders and snakes, succubi, deranged murder phantoms, psuedo-demons--words I can barely type without gasping, and the worst they seem capable of is causing splotchy patches of skin and a need to masturbate. So thanks a lot for seventh grade, ghosts. Occam's Razor Robert talks to a lot of people who do things like hike through poison ivy and then catch a rash from psychic combat. Which is totally possible. But the arresting officer who found me with a video camera in the ladies room explained to me this thing called Occam's Razor which is the principle that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. Metaphysicists like Robert Bruce believe Occam's Razor is a secret plot by space wolves possessing 12th century philosophers in order to throw modern ghost hunters off the scent of the true cause of ear infections. Hot Astral Skin Care Tips! As Robert Bruce warns, battling astral enemies causes all kinds of skin blemishes. He also suggests that you can get rid of them by circling them with a ballpoint pen. This tells nearby ladies that you don't have acne, you have battle scars from fighting monsters in your dreams, and then you drew on your face with a pen. If she doesn't fuck you after that, you've definitely got ghosts. FIGHTING the Pain Resistant Attacker: fighting drunks, dopers, the deranged and others who tolerate pain by Loren W. Christensen In a normal self-defense book, it's all about the groin. The only advantages you have over the man leaping from the shadows with a knife is that he has a kickable dick and doesn't read karate books. On the streets, every confrontation ends on a criminal's groin one way or another. If you sneak up behind someone reading a book about street safety, kicking them in the dong spoils the ending. Run The Fuck Away This book is different from other self-defense guides because it focuses on beating people immune to dick pain like robots and women. So what's the secret move to defeat a pain-resistant attacker? Fleeing. Every combination of moves ends in running for your life, even the hilariously optimistic ones. This book told me to flee after I've landed a spinning kick and stopped my maniac's brain with a double ear slap. Flee my ass! I'm clearly kicking the shit out of this guy! Let's Real Talk for a second. Knives stab faster than a person can remember which chapter of a book dealt with incoming knife stabs. So we're already pretty deep into a karate fantasy by the time I've countered the incoming knife with a -sigh- double ear slap. At this point, I might as well batarang him into the electrical transformer and start looking for a way out of this Hollywood star's vagina I've been in the whole time. Weak Spots On An Enemy Without Weaknesses The author, Loren W. Christensen, is a Vietnam vet with 11 black belts and 29 years on the police force. So if he's fighting a "doper" and his Plan A is panic-and-run, the rest of us are totally fucked. Luckily, he has a few chapters on the non-leaving aspects of martial arts like neck poking and neck slapping. The neck is apparently the dick of the pain-resistant attacker. Loren also illustrates some of their other weak points like the kidneys, biceps, stomach, face- you know, now that I look closer, the dick seems to be the only part of a pain-resistant attacker that actually resists pain. I think I might be reading an instruction manual on defeating post-op transsexuals. Which would explain this awkward hard-on. THE CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO STOPPING SUICIDE ATTACKERS: Secrets of an Israeli Counterterrorist by Itay Gil and Dan Baron This book shows ordinary people how they can foil a terrorist hijacking. It shows you how to punch or bite a man with a knife, how to kill with a belt and how to kick Islamic people in the groin in a crowded fuselage. There's only one problem I have with all this: If I'm on a plane, that means I was at an airport, and it's illegal to be tough in an airport. Airports Are For Sissies Every time I go through security, a man half my size takes my toothpaste from me and I stand there in my socks and let him. I don't even beat the GED out of the little bitch's brain when he snidely offers me the opportunity to mail it to myself. Mail my toothpaste to myself? How about I mail it to your mom so she can clean the teeth growing out of her dick's tumor? I enter an airport as a normal person, and by the time I get to my plane I'm so filled with impotent rage that I'm having make-believe conversations with a widow about why I killed her husband over toothpaste. So this book wants to teach me how to kill a hijacker? I'm crammed into a tube with 200 people too fat for their seats and scared of toothpaste! If some guy pulls a knife on us, there's going to be so much panicked incontinence on the floor that I'll need a jet ski to get to him. Terrorists, You Face MacGyver Most of the combat in the book is a variation on classic Krav Maga self-defense like "shove his knife out of the way and punch him in the fucking face." You'd be better off just squealing and improvising mid-leap. Where the book really shines is its tips on creating makeshift weapons using only the crap found on a plane. For example, here's how to arts 'n' crafts an ordinary Coke can into a dagger: I don't trust the intelligence of someone who can describe stomping a soda can into a knife with the word "discreetly," but the authors make up for their stupid with plenty of rad. For example, they give tips on crushing terrorist windpipes with the edge of a meal tray! Why the hell not!? Advanced Tip: If you try this, it's a good idea to practice the accompanying wisecrack at home so you will not have to waste precious time experimenting under the intense pressure of a hijack crisis. Imagination: The Deadliest Weapon Ever since a security agent dickishly offered to let me mail myself my nail clippers, I've had my concerns about the retardation of airplane security. That's why I devised a simple test you can perform to judge the deadliness of an object. Hold it in your hand or hands. Now, get suddenly attacked by a lunatic. Did you drop the object? OK, then it's not a weapon. Plastic trays and soda cans fall into this category. So if you're making plans to kill a terrorist with a meal tray by swinging it into the exact spot where a meal tray would bother a terrorist, don't. And if you're going into a knife fight with half a Coke can, the best you can hope for is giving everyone a good laugh when they step over your body to beat the crap out of the terrorist with their fists. Dim-Mak: Death-Point Striking by Erle Montaigue In all of martial arts, the deadliest attack is the Dim-Mak. Dim-Mak was invented by Jean-Claude Van Damme and is bullshit for "Death Touch." A master of the Dim-Mak can poke an enemy in a certain spot and they die. It originated in ancient China when early man still had prominent off-switches located around the body, much like a modern lamp. Back then, you could kill a guy by selling him the wrong sized hat. Today, the Dim-Mak isn't quite as useful. The main problem with the Dim-Mak is that it's so stupidly magical. If you could actually kill someone by poking them in the wrong spot, I would have driven home from the prom a murderer. So what kind of person is crazy enough to believe in this crap and is then double crazy enough to think you do too? See Figure 6. So Awesome. Erle Montaigue is so awesome. He knows enough about colon and bladder points that he can probably make you evacuate your bowels with a high five and the crazy eyes that say he'll try. If he gave you a back rub, the coroner would swear you swallowed a hand grenade. I don't even know how to review a book based around poking a man's colon point to death, so here's a picture of the author killing a man with only a beard stroke and breast fondle.