Survival Kit
Summer is upon us. It’s camping time! This is also the time when geeks and nerds agree to go on camping trips with whatever friends they have left, just to prove once and for all that they arent vampires and that they wont spontaneously burst into flames if exposed to direct sunlight. As pointless as the exercise is, it is also very dangerous. Do not fear though, for I have your back. From experience, I have put together a handy 10 Item Wilderness Survival Kit that should help you save your ass long enough for it to get rescued.
1. Knife: Comes in handy to tighten/loosen screws in any abandoned shafts that you might find.
2. Screwdriver: You could stab someone with it.
3. Compass: Not just any stupid compass that points north, but a special one that points towards the raptors. A fulctuating compass means theres more than one of them out there. If it starts spinning, it means you are surrounded. And screwed.
4. Fire Wool: You will need this to start fires. Fire is a very useful power, but has its pros and cons.
Con: Tiny fires can tip off your position to the raptors.
Pro: A fire big enough can be used to scare the raptors off.
Con: A fire big enough can burn down the whole goddamn forest.
Pro: All you can eat BBQ.
5. Laser: Raptors are like cats: Stealthy, deadly, jumpy, and make a funny purring noise when you rub their bellies. And they are mersmerized by lasers. Just point one to the ground in front of the raptor and watch the fun for hours. You can literally hypnotize them with it. Though soon they get a bit aggressive and start viciously attacking the spot. Thats when you point it on another raptor and watch some cold blooded raptor on raptor action. They’ll even willingly follow it into the tar pit. Just dont brag about it after you are rescued. PETA will hand you your ass if they find out.
6. Condoms: Getting stranded in a forest and being hunted by raptors is, quite honestly, plain bad luck. The law of averages demands that there be something to level that off. And to level something like that off, you need to get lucky. Like really – really lucky. Just get a 15 pack is what I’m saying.
7. Tranquilizers: You’ll need these to make your own DIY ghetto hipster darts. I strongly recommend the new improved stronger faster acting longer lasting formula which comes in re-inforced vials… basically, the best you can afford. Tranquilizers are not something you try to cut corners on. And lets face it, if you go anywhere without these babies, karmatically speaking, you deserve to die.
8. Change. You know, dollar bills and quarters. “I am fraking stranded in a fraking forest teeming with fraking raptors!!” is no excuse for being a miserly tipper. And last thing you want when eating an unevenly roasted swamp reptile BBQ is someone else’s spit in it.
9. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: When you finally run out of wits and tranquilizers, do not despair, for there is one last hope. The raptors will typically work as a team to corner you, and one of them will go for the kill. He will get the yummiest part of you while the others devour your less palatable parts. You can work this to your advantage. Simply convince the raptor that caught you, that by having to give up the barely edible parts of you to the loser raptors, whose only contribution to the hunt was to corner you so he could have the best parts of you, he is being punished for being totally awesome. Which is totally unfair. And that to protest against such radical communism, he should go on a strike and not take parts in any hunts.
This works in two ways. First, you will have one less raptor hunting you, and second, selfishness is rather contagious. Just give it time, and the concept will spread to other raptors. Anyone who reads Rand is bound to act like an asshole for a month afterwards. Without the team work, the raptors will only be fractionally effective, and dodging them should be fairly easy. Also without any hunting for a month, they’ll be starving and will invariably devour each other. A month should also be fairly long enough to get you rescued. Unless the contract gets renewed for one more season.
10. Cyanide Pill: For when you run into Reavers. Unless it was River in #6.
Ofcourse, all these measures are moot if there is no search and rescue operation out for you. And lets face it, very few people in real life are going to realize that you have been gone for a month. Your only failsafe measure in this case is what you do before you leave. Configure multiple “Dead Man’s Scripts” to execute on multiple servers, which would alert your forums, wikis and social networks that you are quite possibly in grave danger, and update them with your last known coordinates. Someone somewhere should care enough to get the ball rolling towards rescuing you. If no one cares even that much, I say its time you start making friends with the raptors.
