Survival Club
I’m not one to subscribe to fatalist theories about the end of the Earth. Seeing the news about countless birds and fish spontaneously dying certainly gave me pause. In fact, my friends and I began joking about creating a Survival Club, where we’d take classes every month that would teach us a skill essential to surviving the Apocalypse. You know, we figured stuff like guns, fishing, knot-tying and so forth. But as with anything requiring effort, we’d been sitting on our asses. That is, until the tsunami hit Japan. For the hours directly following the tsunami, I went on a shopping spree on Amazon, buying every piece of survival gear I could think of. The tsunami solidified the importance of being prepared, and from that moment, Survival Club was very real and very active.
We started with going to the shooting range. It seemed natural to learn how to defend whatever resources you stocked up. While Japan’s survivors were civil in the face of the disaster, I couldn’t expect the same in Los Angeles, where riots and looting are even possible following a basketball game. As it turned out, we had a few skilled shooters in our club. Ed was great with handguns, while Daniel and Jungha were excellent with rifles. Thanks to paintball, Joe and Heidi were pretty much good at all of it. Me? I was good at handing out the bullets and making sure everyone had protective eyewear and ear plugs. Safety first, especially when the Earth is imploding, right?
Next, we tried our hand at fishing. We practiced at Redondo Beach where we’d seen families fishing on the pier. The catching part wasn’t so bad. We actually managed to get a few fish. The part that none of us seemed ready to do was to clean the fish. Come to think of it, seeing that we were all foodie snobs, none of us seemed all too eager to eat them either. Years of Yelping and gourmet gorging isn’t easy to reverse.
Knot-tying was boring as shit, so we mostly drank during that class. I’d read from the manual and start doing some knots, but everyone was falling asleep on me. I busted out the bottle of Patron to make things interesting. I’m not sure if we really learned any useful knots, but we did learn how to tie ourselves up to one another. And that was kind of interesting, I guess. Wish we had more girls in our club though.
We each bought the SAS Survival Guide, which is basically the British version of the Army Field Guide, and it documents how to survive different environmental threats. It wouldn’t be Survival Club unless we tried surviving, and that’s exactly what our dumb asses attempted last week… and we paid dearly for our inexperience.
Survival Club decided to go camping. Just to be honest, I’ve never gone camping in my entire life. The thought of sleeping in the open where bugs could just climb in and crawl over you didn’t seem like my idea of fun. But, if my survival is at stake, I guess I’d better man up. We decided to skip the usual camping grounds since we couldn’t count on them being unoccupied during a real disaster. Instead, we figured we’d have to learn how to rough it in the real woods. That was probably our first mistake.
My next mistake was not reading up on how people take a shit in the woods. I didn’t realize most people dug a hole first. I just kind of squatted and let it out, not realizing that I’d have to keep spreading my legs wider and wider to avoid contact. By the time I was done, I had a fairly large mound of refuse and paper. I threw some dirt and leaves on top of it, but man, I looked at it and just couldn’t imagine this as a sustainable process for ten of us. We’d have to move camp after just two days. Ed was kind enough to point out later what I did wrong. Too bad none of us brought a shovel.
As it turned out, surviving was kind of fun. We made Spam and drank beers. We tested our flashlights while setting up animal snares. We painted our faces with camouflage and sang along to Daniel’s iPod. Many of us were suffering from Facebook withdrawal so we decided to play a game of Monopoly, except we’d have to drink shots every time someone bought a property or Passed Go or went to jail. I’ll be honest; we didn’t really play the game so much as just randomly threw our game pieces onto the board and just yelled, “Shot time!”
I kept thinking, “Man, we are badass. If the world did come to an end, we would not only survive, we’d make it a party.” That is, until we ran out of Spam and beers. Then we had to test out our water filtration gear, and believe me, it may be safe, but the water tastes like it’d been run through a urinal. In the morning, we walked over to the lake to fish. Four hours later, we didn’t catch a single thing. Our animal snares were also bare. Flipping through the guidebook, I cringed as the next proposed solution for food was to dig for grubs. More than a few of us agreed that maybe a diet was a good idea.
A day passed. We were getting hungry. I thought Ed and Jungha were grumpy whenever dinner was late, but a day late? It’s like they had a hive of bees in their stomachs. We debated on whether or not to drive home, but I guess I was too stubborn. Also, I forgot where we left the keys. Everyone was in such a foul mood that I kept it too myself.
In the evening, we ate some mushrooms that we found. We boiled them in water and made a sort of soup. It only cemented our misery. After dinner, I was looking for a place to relieve myself when I came across Randy huddled next to a tree. I crept up behind him. I thought I was being obvious, but he didn’t notice me until I was upon him. Startled, he jumped back, revealing something in his hands. He’d been eating an entire bag of beef jerky. He’d been holding out. My temper flared, and I began yelling at him. Everyone else came running, and before I knew it, a circle had formed around us.
Randy and I were screaming at each other. I told everyone that he was hiding food from us. Randy accused Jeremy of hiding a bag of Snickers. Jeremy accused Heidi of keeping a secret bottle of wine. Fingers were pointing everywhere. Voices kept getting louder and louder. It was like we all wanted to scream for catharsis, and we did. Randy and Jeremy started shoving each other, and things were turning ugly. And then we all heard it. A growl in the woods. Not our own stomachs nor a movie moment, but a real, honest-to-god growl. Everyone froze. What the hell was it?
As it turns out, a major part of surviving is getting freaked out by the sounds of an animal and then promptly running your asses off. I mean, what choice did we have? We had knives, but none of us had guns. Our licenses were still a few days out. Joe and Heidi brought their paintguns, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t scare away bears and wolves and mountain lions. We’d just have really angry blue and yellow animals eating us alive.
As I ran with Jungha through the woods, something tackled me to the ground. I squealed like a stuck pig. “Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me!” I pleaded. It was Randy.
“Give me the fucking car keys now, asshole,” he said.
I didn’t have them. I had no idea where they were. He didn’t like hearing this. He pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He gave me a look, as if I should understand how serious he was. I could feel the fear welling up in my stomach, rising up to my eyes in the form of tears. I wanted to say something, but the words were stuck in my throat.
Then, out of nowhere and all of a sudden, a boot came flying out and kicked Randy squarely across the face. I heard something crack. Daniel jumped on top of Randy and began delivering a ferocious beating. Jungha helped me to my feet, and I stumbled over to Daniel. I had to try and stop him. There was blood. So much of it that my knees felt weak. It was all over Daniel’s hands. Randy wasn’t even fighting back. It was absolutely insane. I couldn’t believe where this was headed. I’m guessing that by now, neither can you. But now you know, Armageddon falls on the first of April.
We started with going to the shooting range. It seemed natural to learn how to defend whatever resources you stocked up. While Japan’s survivors were civil in the face of the disaster, I couldn’t expect the same in Los Angeles, where riots and looting are even possible following a basketball game. As it turned out, we had a few skilled shooters in our club. Ed was great with handguns, while Daniel and Jungha were excellent with rifles. Thanks to paintball, Joe and Heidi were pretty much good at all of it. Me? I was good at handing out the bullets and making sure everyone had protective eyewear and ear plugs. Safety first, especially when the Earth is imploding, right?
Next, we tried our hand at fishing. We practiced at Redondo Beach where we’d seen families fishing on the pier. The catching part wasn’t so bad. We actually managed to get a few fish. The part that none of us seemed ready to do was to clean the fish. Come to think of it, seeing that we were all foodie snobs, none of us seemed all too eager to eat them either. Years of Yelping and gourmet gorging isn’t easy to reverse.
Knot-tying was boring as shit, so we mostly drank during that class. I’d read from the manual and start doing some knots, but everyone was falling asleep on me. I busted out the bottle of Patron to make things interesting. I’m not sure if we really learned any useful knots, but we did learn how to tie ourselves up to one another. And that was kind of interesting, I guess. Wish we had more girls in our club though.
We each bought the SAS Survival Guide, which is basically the British version of the Army Field Guide, and it documents how to survive different environmental threats. It wouldn’t be Survival Club unless we tried surviving, and that’s exactly what our dumb asses attempted last week… and we paid dearly for our inexperience.
Survival Club decided to go camping. Just to be honest, I’ve never gone camping in my entire life. The thought of sleeping in the open where bugs could just climb in and crawl over you didn’t seem like my idea of fun. But, if my survival is at stake, I guess I’d better man up. We decided to skip the usual camping grounds since we couldn’t count on them being unoccupied during a real disaster. Instead, we figured we’d have to learn how to rough it in the real woods. That was probably our first mistake.
My next mistake was not reading up on how people take a shit in the woods. I didn’t realize most people dug a hole first. I just kind of squatted and let it out, not realizing that I’d have to keep spreading my legs wider and wider to avoid contact. By the time I was done, I had a fairly large mound of refuse and paper. I threw some dirt and leaves on top of it, but man, I looked at it and just couldn’t imagine this as a sustainable process for ten of us. We’d have to move camp after just two days. Ed was kind enough to point out later what I did wrong. Too bad none of us brought a shovel.
As it turned out, surviving was kind of fun. We made Spam and drank beers. We tested our flashlights while setting up animal snares. We painted our faces with camouflage and sang along to Daniel’s iPod. Many of us were suffering from Facebook withdrawal so we decided to play a game of Monopoly, except we’d have to drink shots every time someone bought a property or Passed Go or went to jail. I’ll be honest; we didn’t really play the game so much as just randomly threw our game pieces onto the board and just yelled, “Shot time!”
I kept thinking, “Man, we are badass. If the world did come to an end, we would not only survive, we’d make it a party.” That is, until we ran out of Spam and beers. Then we had to test out our water filtration gear, and believe me, it may be safe, but the water tastes like it’d been run through a urinal. In the morning, we walked over to the lake to fish. Four hours later, we didn’t catch a single thing. Our animal snares were also bare. Flipping through the guidebook, I cringed as the next proposed solution for food was to dig for grubs. More than a few of us agreed that maybe a diet was a good idea.
A day passed. We were getting hungry. I thought Ed and Jungha were grumpy whenever dinner was late, but a day late? It’s like they had a hive of bees in their stomachs. We debated on whether or not to drive home, but I guess I was too stubborn. Also, I forgot where we left the keys. Everyone was in such a foul mood that I kept it too myself.
In the evening, we ate some mushrooms that we found. We boiled them in water and made a sort of soup. It only cemented our misery. After dinner, I was looking for a place to relieve myself when I came across Randy huddled next to a tree. I crept up behind him. I thought I was being obvious, but he didn’t notice me until I was upon him. Startled, he jumped back, revealing something in his hands. He’d been eating an entire bag of beef jerky. He’d been holding out. My temper flared, and I began yelling at him. Everyone else came running, and before I knew it, a circle had formed around us.
Randy and I were screaming at each other. I told everyone that he was hiding food from us. Randy accused Jeremy of hiding a bag of Snickers. Jeremy accused Heidi of keeping a secret bottle of wine. Fingers were pointing everywhere. Voices kept getting louder and louder. It was like we all wanted to scream for catharsis, and we did. Randy and Jeremy started shoving each other, and things were turning ugly. And then we all heard it. A growl in the woods. Not our own stomachs nor a movie moment, but a real, honest-to-god growl. Everyone froze. What the hell was it?
As it turns out, a major part of surviving is getting freaked out by the sounds of an animal and then promptly running your asses off. I mean, what choice did we have? We had knives, but none of us had guns. Our licenses were still a few days out. Joe and Heidi brought their paintguns, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t scare away bears and wolves and mountain lions. We’d just have really angry blue and yellow animals eating us alive.
As I ran with Jungha through the woods, something tackled me to the ground. I squealed like a stuck pig. “Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me!” I pleaded. It was Randy.
“Give me the fucking car keys now, asshole,” he said.
I didn’t have them. I had no idea where they were. He didn’t like hearing this. He pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He gave me a look, as if I should understand how serious he was. I could feel the fear welling up in my stomach, rising up to my eyes in the form of tears. I wanted to say something, but the words were stuck in my throat.
Then, out of nowhere and all of a sudden, a boot came flying out and kicked Randy squarely across the face. I heard something crack. Daniel jumped on top of Randy and began delivering a ferocious beating. Jungha helped me to my feet, and I stumbled over to Daniel. I had to try and stop him. There was blood. So much of it that my knees felt weak. It was all over Daniel’s hands. Randy wasn’t even fighting back. It was absolutely insane. I couldn’t believe where this was headed. I’m guessing that by now, neither can you. But now you know, Armageddon falls on the first of April.