ContrariWisdom

How to Prepare to be Raptured

2011-05-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

1) Chose an attractive, yet comfortable, clothing ensemble. If you are raptured, this will be the outfit you will spend all of eternity wearing. Opt for classic styles and avoid trendy items that are likely to go out of style quickly. If you got the idea from Lady Gaga, it's best avoided. A rotting meat dress is still a rotting meat dress, even in heaven.

Comfort is key when selecting your rapture ensemble. Select something that you can frolic freely through the heavens in. Fashioning a toga out of your bed sheets may seem like a practical and timeless solutions; however, as Brad Pitt taught us in "Seven", God counts sloth among the cardinal sins worthy of eternal damnation.

Sorry, little guy.

I can't really think of anything more slovenly than utilizing your bed linens as clothing during an impending apocalypse. Don't make God think twice about you.

2. Make pet sitting arrangements. Christians largely agree that animals do not have souls and, therefore, cannot ascend into heaven. Especially sloths. (Although I personally disagree based on absolutely no biblical or scientific findings.) As such, it is imperative that you arrange for your pet to be cared for once you have left it behind. Select a trusted friend who you suspect will not be raptured tomorrow and speak with them about caring for your pet after God has plucked you from the earth. If you are making arrangements for your cat, you will need to negotiate financial compensation with your friend as no one likes cats.

3. Don't be embarrassing. Leaving earth will also leave your residence vulnerable to home invasion and squatters. Rid your home of embarrassing artifacts prior to being raptured to avoid leaving a legacy of humiliation. Burning the contents of your nightstand drawer is usually a good starting point.

4. Bid adieu. "Experts" agree that only about 2% of the population will be raptured tomorrow. This means that, if you have 200 facebook friends, 196 of them will be hanging around until October, while you will essentially be dead. Seize this opportunity to bid them adieu. Now is the time to make proclamations of unrequited love, apologetic confessions of wrongdoing, and excrutiationly truthful declarations of annoyance with all of your facebook friends. Personal examples include:

          "John, I know I've never said this before, but I peed in your Brita water pitcher. I
             thought I was doing you a favor by testing its scientific integrity. I was quite
                                                  drunk. Sincerest apologies."

                                                                          And....

          "Katie, your facebook statuses are truly a testament to the state of mankind and
             the need for God to intervene. If it's not some ambiguous post about how sad
                 you are about something, then it's a picture of your overweight cat doing
            something thoroughly uninteresting. If you don't get raptured, I won't really be
                                                                    surprised.
                                                    P.S. Can you watch my dog?"

Here's a John Mayer song to inspire you:

"A Bald Eagle got her."

2011-01-31T14:35:00.000-08:00

I wish I could describe in vivid detail the events of last Thursday night. Suffice it to say that it involved all of the following:

Copious consumption of canned dive bar beer
A significant monetary contribution to the most glorious jukebox in all the land
Dancing/having my hair petted repeatedly by a strange girl who insisted I was from Sweden
Being picked up and nearly hurled over a fence into oncoming traffic as a result of a heated debate regarding Nooks
A kidnapping attempt under the pretense of filet mignon
T-shirts showcasing two unicorns having relations under a rainbow
A search and rescue mission for a dog, who was standing on the corner the entire time, but refused to return home until we retrieved the car and drove him 8.5 feet back to the house
Burritos

At some point during these events, my friend and I decided that a trip to the north was in order so we could play in the snow.

Remarkably, despite our inebriated state, we recalled our plan and even followed through with it. Bundled in our best attempt at snow attire, we embarked on a journey to Flagstaff yesterday.

The trip, in its initital stages, was going rather well. However, about two hours in and a mere 30 miles outside of our destination, it abruptly dawned on us that we had simply assumed that snow would be not only present, but plentiful. Perhaps because we had been so certain of this on Thursday night after a few PBRs, we failed to question it by checking the weather report. Our growing concern was amplified as we began to notice the considerable lack of snow along the highway.

Being the resourceful individual that I occasionally am, I asked my friend to look up the number to a bookstore in Flagstaff that I had visited once twelve years ago and happened to remember. I spent the next five minutes questioning a very confused Bookman's employee about the status of snow in her general vicinity. She ultimately informed me that there may be some leftover snow, but being that it was more than four weeks old, blackened, and hardened into ice, playing in it would prove difficult.

Irritated by her unwillingness to produce snow, I made my friend find the number to Starbucks instead. They would never deny me snow.

The Starbucks employee was equally confused by the purpose of my call, but ultimately more helpful. She suggested that we drive past Flagstaff to the Snowbowl (skiing/snowboarding mountain, for those unfamiliar with the area), where she promised that snow would be fresh and abundant.

When we arrived at Snowbowl, we scurried excitedly towards the snow. Once there though, we were suddenly met with confusion over the purpose of this trip.

Me: So what were you planning to do once you found snow?

Friend: Well, I sort of imagined that I would just roll around in it.

Me: It's really hard. Do you want me to hold your purse so you can roll around?

Friend: No, I'm second guessing my plan now. What was your plan?

Me: General frolicking. Maybe a snowman.

We both contemplated this momentarily and made a feeble attempt at frolicking by sort of jumping around for several seconds while displeased snowboarders whooshed past us. My friend's ill-advised attempt at creating a snowball sans gloves was the final straw.

Friend: Fuck snow.

Me: Indeed. New plan: whiskey in the lodge.

After paying $8.50 for a single teaspoon of whiskey in the lodge, we decided to head back to town and wander around. We visited a haunted hotel and a few record and book stores before making our way to the Pay and Take.

What is the Pay and Take, you might ask. Well, the Pay and Take is essentially a convenience store posing as a bar. You walk in, select your drink of choice from a freezer case filled with beers I've never heard of, pay a guy named Dave for your beer, pour it yourself, drink it, then bus your own table. Dave's role is simply to take your money and to make fun of you for breaking the door. In short, the whole place is just a hipster conspiracy. It affords them the opportunity to gloat over their knowledge of exotic microbrews, while also upholding their stingent code of appearing not to give a shit about anything. If a hipster were to openly exhibit anything but complete apathy toward the pouring of a customer's beer, the supreme deity of whatever obscure Eastern religion he claims to practice would most certainly smite him. We can't have that happening to Dave.*

Fortunately, something happened on the drive home that made this whole ordeal completely worthwhile. While merging onto the highway, we spotted a giant Bald Eagle just feet away from us. Sadly, it appeared that it may have possibly been hurt. I intended to turn around and provide aid to the wounded creature until my friend announced her hesitancy to cooperate with this plan, stating that Bald Eagles can kill people.

For many years, I have believed that my preferred method of dying would be shark attack. I'm now forced to reconsider. "Did you hear what happened to Liz?"...."Yeah, a Bald Eagle got her." It just has a ring of grandiosity to it. So please, oh please, supreme deity of Dave's Eastern religion, when my time comes, let there be a Bald Eagle involved.

Moral of the story: snow is better in theory than in practice, Bald Eagles can kill people, and hipsters have better things to do than pour your beer.

*I'm only kidding. I actually really liked Dave. I feel very confident that, had he been aware of my inadequate beer pouring skills beforehand, he would have even poured my beer for me.

How to Be Impressive

2010-12-26T19:48:00.000-08:00

Several days ago, I woke up feeling sick. It wasn’t that horrid, all-consuming illness that makes you want to swaddle yourself with your own blanket, shuffle dramatically to the kitchen where you chug orange juice directly from the carton before plunging your head in the freezer for just long enough for everyone to notice and muster a sufficient amount of sympathy, then return to bed where you resolve to just lie down and die, but secretly hope that someone who witnessed your behavior pities you enough to come check on you because you really regret not getting an Otter Pop out of the freezer while your head was in there. Even if it was that kind of illness, I couldn’t act accordingly because I woke in a house full of three Marines and one tattoo artist, none of whom are in the business of sympathizing with pain or of fetching Otter Pops.

Instead, the rawness in my throat, the ache in my ears, and the mild flush of fever were simply a foreboding, urging me rest and recuperate or risk being miserably ill just in time for the holidays. Unfortunately for my body, I do not succumb to threats. So instead of peacefully slumbering and ingesting large quantities of liquids until I felt better, I drug myself out of bed at 5:00 a.m. after a mere three hours of sleep and went on a four mile trek through unfamiliar wilderness led by three Marines.

Guilty parties.

Initially, the purpose of said voyage was to go shooting. Roughly four minutes into the hike though, the focus shifted from shooting to a competition for who could tread the most dangerous path without dying. What I was originally promised would be “like a walk through the grocery store” suddenly became four straight miles of bouldering.

"Oh look, here I am on this giant cliff of unclimbable rocks. I'm not really sure how I got here, but I expect you to emulate my success. And I'm not going to help you do it; I'm too busy posing for pictures."

About 1/64th of a mile into the hike, I was consumed by an overwhelming feeling of doom. I hoped that my parents and my dog knew that I loved them because, as far as I was concerned, death was imminent. It's not that I'm some dramatic girly girl who cries hopelessly when an acrylic nail is ravaged by the forces of nature. Actually, by most accounts, I probably fail completely at being a girl - I've never worn an acrylic nail in my life, shopping malls give me anxiety attacks, whiskey is my drink of choice, and if I come across a snake, you can pretty much bet that I will find a way to snuggle it.

My concern for survival on this excursion lied in the fact that my physical stamina and agility have failed me over the years. Once a martial arts instructor with abs of steel...no, make that titanium*...I now consider walking my dog to be a pretty decent workout.

Though I feared that there was a very real possibility that I would be leaving this canyon by air-evac helicopter, anyone who knows me will tell you that I refuse to be perceived as anything less than a complete badass, so I made no mention of this.

As I trudged on, I found myself shimmying down a particularly unclimbable rock and landing with a delicate hop across several jagged rocks that looked as though they wanted to bash my skull in, all while forgoing the aid of the Marines. I didn't ignore their helping hands to show off, but rather because I was fairly sure I was going down and it was going to be bloody, and I worried that taking one of them with me would piss them off and prompt them to leave me alone in the wilderness with nothing but the tube of Carmex in my pocket, which I don't think would sustain me for long. And there were wild cows abound that would possibly shank me with their horns and eat me.

Seriously. Wild cows.

Back on solid, relatively safe ground, I noticed that one of the Marines (the one who decided that it was not enough to simply complete the hike at a reasonable speed, instead opting to dart ahead of everyone and climb everything) had ceased his frantic climbing of surfaces and was giving me an amused look. Certain that he was about to tease me for my dismount, I contemplated the liklihood of survival if I tackled a six-foot-four Marine with a gun holstered on his leg admist a canyon of jagged rocks. Before I had time to fully calculate the odds though, he chimed in, "Liz, you're like a gymnast AND a ballerina."

It was then that my perception changed. The goal of this hike was no longer mere survival, the goal was to be impressive. When everyone else is carefully stepping around a rock, I will get a running start and hurdle the bastard. If the others are moving a little slower because the rain has coated the boulders in a slippery muck, I will climb them carelessly and twice as fast.

Here I am doing something incredibly impressive. The fellas wanted to take a picture because they were so amazed by my skill right here:

See the giant rock wall behind me? I just climbed down that. And that's my equally impressive partner in crime by my side. We might be amazing.

I also did a handful of really unimpressive things, like trip and fall on my ass on completely level ground for no good reason and hug a thorny bush for stability when I nearly lost my footing one time. However, those incidents can easily be overlooked by all my more impressive endeavors.

The trip turned out to be a success. We scouted out dwelling possibilities and discussed entry/exit and tactical positions throughout the canyon for the zombie apocalypse. We also fulfilled on the the Marine's dreams of eat cacti. Basically, it tastes like demon honeydew. Despite being sick, the hike wasn't nearly as exhausting as I thought it would be. The most painful part of the morning was being asked to wear these horrible, orange earplugs that expand in your ear canal while shooting. If you have an ear infection, I don't recommend shoving things in your ear.

Fast forward to the following day, which happens to be Christmas Eve. I woke up feeling like I swallowed a Costco-sized pack of throwing stars and rolled through fire until my body reached an internal temperature comprable only to hell. Apparently, four mile bouldering excursions in the rain are not recommended to treat any sort of illness.

I spent the bulk of my day on Christmas Eve at the urgent care, where I learned that I am afflicted by severe tonsilitis and an ear infection. The doctor, seeing that my tonsils were basically swollen shut, tried to convince me to go to the ER instead; however, my insurance provider thought that this would be a good time to drop me so I had to politely decline and let the doctor know that I would just go ahead and die if it came down to it. I asked for some pain medicine and was given a measly quantity of codeine, which I settled for even though it wasn't the tub of percocet I had hoped for. Unfortunately, the codeine did little to negate the ungodly amount of pain I was in.

Christmas day was equally horrible. I wasn't able to attend my family's Christmas celebration for fear of exposing my grandmother, who had already been under the weather, to my illness. So I curled up in ball in my bed, chowed down on codeine and soup, and contemplated the poor decisions that landed me alone in bed on Christmas day. A couple people called, which I originally thought was quite nice even though I struggled to speak, but then it turned out that they just wanted to discuss what they were currently angry at me for, which is slightly ironic because I can't remember the last time someone was genuinely upset with me for anything.

Anyway, the point is: If you feel you may be getting sick, it is not advisable to allow three large Marines to lure you into the wild and drag you on a four mile hike over large boulders, up steep rock walls, through thorny brush, in the rain. But if you do let that happen, at least try to be impressive about it. Here's how:

Step 1) Study what those around you are doing. Replicate their actions, but with twice the speed, vigor, enthusiasm, force, or cartwheels as they used.

Step 2) Draw attention to yourself. You could go around be impressive all day, but if you fail to draw attention to yourself for your impressiveness, no one will give you credit for it. I suggest a full-body sequin leotard for this purpose. Regular clothing can be worn over it, then simply removed when it's time to be impressive. Make sure you cover up though when being less than impressive or it will lose a great deal of its impact.

Step 3) Be nonchalant about your impressiveness. Pretend you don't know that you're impressive. If someone compliments you on being impressive, act undeserving of their praise. In turn, they will think you're even more impressive for not thinking what you just did was that impressive. They will assume that you just do so many impressive things, that you're jaded by your own impressiveness.

*If titanium is stronger than steel.

How to Save the World From Dragons

2010-12-09T11:12:00.000-08:00

You may doubt my expertise on this topic, arguing that it is unlikely that I have ever saved the world from dragons. However, I assure you that I have engaged in a full-blown anti-dragon campaign that spared the lives of at least 209 Denny's patrons from dragons, thereby making me the world's foremost dragon slayer as of the time this was posted.

My family calls it "The Swinging Dragon Incident."

My mother, feeling that this does not do justice to the sheer terror that we experienced on this day, interjects, "Oh, do you mean the time little Elizabeth nearly plummeted to her death on the damn dragon?"

It began harmlessly enough with a family trip to a certain Southern California theme park. Unfortunately, it was not Disneyland. Disneyland understands the importance of things like minding their own height requirement charts and not murdering children inside the park.

Not-Disneyland was still struggling with their comprehension of these concepts. Luckily, there were some other policies they held firm on, such as not picking up the trash around the park more than biannually and performing maintenance on all rides simultaneously, instead of at well-timed intervals. Due to their strict enforcement of the latter, my family struggled to find rides that were both suitable for my tiny frame and not completely dismantled.

We finally came across a giant, happily-painted dragon swaying gently in the wind that seemed to meet both of the aforementioned criteria. I excitedly darted towards the height requirement chart, but upon my arrival the bold, red line towering more than a foot overhead promptly crushed my little four-year-old soul. Defeated, I began to walk away, having decided that I shall spend the remainder of the day educating my parents on vacation planning.

Then it happened. A voice called to me. It sounded just like choirs of angels interspersed with the clinking of unicorn horns in a field of marshmallow fluff. "It's okay. She'll be just fine, folks," the young, female ride attendant beckoned.

Suspicious, my parents further questioned the ride attendant of this dragon's intent. Would it simply sway gently in the wind a few times before delivering us back to earth relatively unscathed? No, it would not. But my parents would not have time to learn the answers to their completely legitimate questions.

I had already mounted the dragon.

Still slightly wary, my parents joined me, flanking me on each side of the bench I had chosen. I was initially rather annoyed by their seating selection. We were the only people on the ride, so I didn't see why we couldn't all have our own bench seats. Minutes later, their seating selection would prove instrumental to my survival.

The dragon began to move. As promised, it seemed to rock gently in a manner that would not be terrifying for a four-year-old such as myself. It quickly became clear though that these initial movements were only to gain momentum for what was to come.

As the swaying of the dragon became increasingly exaggerated, I recall my parents screaming at the ride attendant to stop the ride. Visibly distraught and now having recognized her actions to have been in error, she hollered back that she couldn't.

Before long, we were at a ninety degree angle, staring down at the asphalt below. My mother was clutching her purse, the contents of which were spilling everywhere. My father, feeling that death was imminent at this moment, appeared to be contemplating just jumping to get it over with. In all the chaos, my parents failed to notice that I was slowly scooting to my death. The safety bar, having been designed for those who met the actual height requirement for this ride, was failing to keep me in place. With each swing, I had to wrap both arms tightly around the bar, but my pathetic little arms were becoming exhausted and the likelihood of survival was seeming grim.

Finally, my mother noticed that I was being flung about violently and relinquished her grip on her purse to hold me securely in place. She was yelling at my father to assist, but he was curled up against the side of the ride and apparently had lapsed into some sort of trauma-induced trance. I'm pretty sure he was under the impression that we had all already died. This went on until the ride finally slowed and we were all able to exit. The ride attendant cowered as we passed through the exit, saved from verbal assault only by my father's urgent need to vomit.

The fear had dissipated by the time we arrived back in Arizona, but now manifested in the form of anger. It was then that I resolved to inform the world of this evil dragon. Each time a new person was encountered, I politely introduced myself, then launched into a vivid description of my near-death experience.

Restaurants were perhaps my favorite place to wage my anti-dragon campaign.

I carried a small notebook and crayon with me at all times so that I could render illustrations of the events, then hand them out to anyone who would take them. Sadly, I do not have any of my original drawings to share, but I imagine they looked something like this:

Admittedly, this may have been an exaggeration. But I didn't care...I was saving lives. This probably would have been a more accurate portrayal:

At first, my parents supported my campaign. They agreed that people needed to know. I had always been a quiet child, so they were probably happy to see that I had become so fearlessly outgoing.

In time though, it became clear that I was obsessed. Not only was I interfering with the breakfasts of strangers to tell them my tale, I was submitting drawings of the incident to God during the weekly offering collection at church and demolishing other people's copies of the movie Pete's Dragon. People were becoming annoyed, especially since I began to take some creative liberties with the story.

In time, my enthusiasm for saving people from certain death via dragon attack waned.

Or did it? After all, I did just recount my story to anyone on the Internet who will listen, complete with dramatic illustrations depicting the event. How's that for a twist, M. Night Shyamalan?

Anyway, there's really only one thing you need to do to aid in saving the world from dragons:

Step 1: Do not ride the swinging dragon at Knott's Berry Farm.

Tip: Similar rides at other amusement parks should be considered equally dangerous and are best avoided.

How to Extract a Nipple

2010-11-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

You may be under the impression that you are about to get detailed directions on the mechanics of breastfeeding, but you would be wrong. I know nothing about breastfeeding and cannot speculate as to how or why it is done. However, if you have a rogue sprinkler that is spewing water all over everything but your lawn, you may be in the market for a nipple extraction, whether you know it or not.

When one of my sprinklers decided that its purpose would be better served by erratically watering my lawn furniture, the side of my house, and occasionally, my unsuspecting dog. I did what most girls would do in my situation. I glared at it from the other side of my sliding glass door, called it a bastard, and when the coast was clear, I stomped furiously on it. When all of these obviously brilliant tactics failed, I called my dad.

He arrived shortly after, toolbox in hand and superhero cape blowing majestically in the wind. He assessed the situation, finding that the sprinkler head was no longer attached to whatever sprinkler heads usually find themselves attached to. He dug a sizeable hole, but quickly discovered that the thing below (note that I have absolutely no knowledge of sprinkler terminology) was a worthy adversary. He announced that a trip to Home Depot was in order.

While he was gone, a standoff developed in which my dog switched between eyeing the hole longingly and staring spitefully at me as if to say, "I've lived here for two freaking years and you have never, NEVER let me dig the hole I wanted to dig back here, but this guy is here for two seconds and he gets to dig a hole?!? I hate you."

To my relief, my dad returned quickly and the tension between my dog and I dissipated. Apparently, this is the answer to taming a problematic sprinkler:

Here are my step-by-step instructions for extracting your own nipple:

Step 1) Print the above picture and show it to Home Depot employees until you have procured this item.

Step 2) Unwrap item, being sure to preserve the label in a safe spot as you will surely want to revisit it during drunken parties as a conversational piece.

Step 3) Things get a bit uncertain at this point. You probably need to dig some sort of hole until you unearth something that looks like it might be called a nipple. Once you have identified the potential nipple, extract it using your nipple extractor.

Tip: When utilizing the label as a conversational piece, be sure to point out the portion that reads 'Rigid teeth for even the toughest of nipples.'

Bonus tip: If you have a dog, consider allowing him to dig the hole for you. Trick him into thinking it was his idea all along to dig this hole. Not only will your dog think you are awesome, but you will save yourself the trip to the neighbor's house to borrow a shovel.

How to Forgo a Productive Life to Become a Blogger

2010-11-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

Blogging is already opening up an array of opportunities for me to neglect customers at work, not wash my dishes, forget about pre-existing commitments, and to generally fail at everyday life.

Here's how you can emulate my sucess:

Step 1) Visit your blog obsessively to admire your lone post.

Step 2) Check the e-mail account that you created just for this occasion.

Step 3) Quickly cycle between shock, disappointment, and rage when you find your e-mail box to still be empty.

Step 4) Log on to StatCounter.com to see how many people have visited your blog.

Step 5) Become unjustifiably excited to see that your blog had 37 visitors today.

Step 6) Subtract the four people that you already bullied into reading your blog from your 37 visitors.

Step 7) Ponder who the remaining 33 visitors might be.

Step 8) Wonder if Bono googled himself and consequently stumbled upon your blog.

Step 9) Wonder if Bono told Leonardo DiCaprio about your blog.

Step 10) Regret not having your donate button installed yet so they could give you millions of dollars.

Step 11) Become severely distressed about the donate button situation.

Step 12) Take a mental health break from the computer, telling yourself that you will research the procurement of a donate button upon your return.

Step 13) Drink some iced tea.

Step 14) Return to computer.

Step 15) Forget what you were supposed to do when you got back.

Step 16) Resolve to admire your only blog post again.

Step 17) Repeat steps two through 16.

Because the steps are cyclical, you don't have to worry about actively trying to fail at life; it will come naturally.

I don't want to cause too much alarm or cause for concern amongst my four followers, so I assure you that I had some stunningly productive moments today that came as a shock even to me. I cooked a delicious omelet this morning and also came to the conclusion that, should I ever need to change my name for legal reasons, I would almost definitely change it to Princess Moonstar the Terrible.

On the downside, I expect my productivity levels to plummet drastically tomorrow as I will now have twice the number of blog posts to admire. I plan to adjust accordingly by cutting back my hours at work and switching to paper plates.

UPDATE: I have now received my first piece of fanmail to my new e-mail account, so all it right in the world and I am no longer filled with rage over that situation. Still working on the donate button though.

How to Attack a Bear

2010-11-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a moderate amount of information available regarding the topic of avoiding or surviving bear attacks. The information below does not encompass that topic. Sometimes in life, you must be proactive. Instead of waiting around for a bear to attack you, find a bear and attack it first.

If any of my superiors at work have stumbled upon my blog, I would just like to say that the following is a complete work of fiction. I'll also add that the next paragraph holds no interest for you and you may skip ahead to paragraph three at this time.

For those of you whose income is not a direct result of delegating tedious tasks to me and eyeing me suspiciously when I burst into laughter because I'm watching "Charlie the Unicorn" on YouTube for the hundredth time instead of pretending to work, please note that the above statement is a lie and this is a factual account of the events that transpired today.

Sometimes, when I would rather dive headfirst into an empty riverbed teeming with hungry piranhas that have somehow evolved to live without water than acknowledge that I am trapped within the confines of my boring grey cubicle for the next eight hours, I desperately seek other sources of amusement. This occasionally includes researching and planning vacations that I may or may not ever actually take. Seduced by the idea of lying across a geyser as it erupts and rockets me into the air repeatedly (because they definitely allow you to engage in such activities), I began planning my trip to Yellowstone.

It didn't take long for me to realize that the regular campground is for the weak and unimpressive. They literally have an ice cream stand set up on the campground. If you only need to venture mere yards from your tent to procure an ice cream sandwich, you have failed as an outdoorsman. Bear Grylls would eat you for a mid-morning snack. Even if he was already full off the berries he extricated from some bear droppings, he would still eat you out of sheer spite.

While the regular campers lounge in the air-conditioned comfort of their RVs, peering out the tiny windows at the place where nature used to be until McDonalds chopped down all the trees and killed all the bunnies to erect a wilderness-inspired restaurant, the real badasses are roughing it in the back country. Of course, I want to count myself amongst the badasses.

Self-proclaimed badass I may be, but experienced camper I am not, so I left it in Google's hands to teach me everything I needed to know before my shift was over (because God knows that I will have lost all interest in this by tomorrow). True to form, Google provided endless knowledge on the subject, but I began to notice an underlying theme. It seems that there is something lurking in the wilderness of Yellowstone...something thirsting for human blood.

No, not Edward Cullen. Put your panties back on.

BEARS.

For most of my life, I have naively thought that bears were rather cute and relatively uninterested in humans, I even permitted their fluffy, plush cousins to reside in my bedroom as a child. I now realize that these soft, squishy effigies are just propaganda created by bears to disillusion the public into thinking that bears just want to be cuddled and loved and dressed up like ballerinas. In fact, they don't want any of those things to happen to them. They just want to rip off your flesh.

So, Google, how am I to deal with these truculent creatures? At first, Google suggested a slew of passive tactics aimed at keeping the bears at bay so that I could enjoy my travels through the park. Google didn't understand that this was no longer about nature hikes and fireside Kumbayas; this was about rising victorious against the bear race. After explaining this to Google, it offered one final solution: bear repellant.

'This is it.' I thought, 'This is how we win against the bears.' I clicked triumphantly on the link, but was met only by bold, red text.

One thing was clear - my employer is on the bear's side.

On an unrelated note, minutes later, I accidentally clicked on an advertisement touting discounted airfare and was redirected to a site offering scantily clad Eastern European women as mail-order brides that I had to frantically click out of and may be fired for tomorrow. Really, IT department? You were too lazy to block that site, but still bored enough to find and block a site about bear repellant. If I get fired for this, I'm punching each of you in the esophagus on my way out.

You may have won today, bears (with the help of the IT department), but I'm onto you. While we stand idly by, fretting over the national debt and gradual decline of talent on American Idol, blood-thirsty, maniacal bears are picking us off one by one. To protect the human race, we must launch a large-scale counterattack on the bears using the following steps:

Step 1) Realize that bears hate you.

Step 2) Discard any plush bears bears you have in your home, as they are spies.

Step 3) Find out if your employer is secretly working for the bears. Listen closely to water cooler gossip to determine if it contains any bear innuendos or randomly scream "Bear!" throughout the day and take note of people's reactions. If they don't seem terrified, they are probably a bear.

Step 4) Find a secure, private computer and order as much bear repellant as you can afford.

Step 5) Locate bear.

Step 6) Employ ninja sneak attack moves. (Tip: Summersaults work nicely.)

Step 7) Spray bear repellant onto bear.

Step 8) Watch bear disintegrate.

Tip: Don't get attacked by a bear before you are able to attack it. This gives them the upper hand and you will likely die.