Friday, November 09, 2018

Dark humor is the only real humor.

In California you don't need the news to let you know there is a giant fire raging. You just watch the smoke envelope your town.

Last night I was watching a bunch of the evac videos out of Paradise. I obsessively study every fire because each time I have to reassess if I'm going to evacuate. And I've lost a family member to fire - so I really try to figure out each time if I would have chosen to go.

Most of the time my answer is no. But you have to be logical. Both of the Northern California fires are the only ones I've said - yes. I would evacuate. In a place like Paradise where there are nothing but trees, you really don't stand a chance.

But of course each and every time I have a huge conversation with Mr S. because he knows how deadly serious I am about not evacuating. He doesn't say it but I think he feels a little uncomfortable about my stance. We've had hundreds of conversations about it.

Last night I told him about the videos of people on the freeway with flames on each side. I told him if that were to happen to me the whole video would just me being pissed because fire is the number one way I don't want to go. For obvious reasons.

Him - So your last words would just be a rant?

Me- YEAH. I'd be like muther fucker, this is the number one way I don't want to die. I'd be so mad.

Him - It would really suck in those areas where the fire burns right down to the ocean. You'd have to get in the sea to save yourself.

Me - Well, that super sucks because there are sharks in the ocean. And that is my number three way I don't want to die. Fire, drowning, and sharks. In that order. Do you think other people have an order ranking on the ways they don't want to die?

Him - He just laughs. Well, in that case you'd get a chance on all three.

Me - Oh right. That would make me so mad.

10 comments:

  1. My sister lives in Chico, she had the cars packed but didn't have to go.

    I read about the gridlock & the people who abandoned their cars to go on foot, putting a serious roadblock in front of everyone behind them.

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  2. Wow. That is intense. Chico is a cute town. I thought about retiring there. People just have no idea how fast fire moves. And it's a really bad time of year. All the leaves are just dropping now. That is a lot of fuel. I just got one of my neighbors to trim down their tree. They probably think I'm nuts, but it gives me a lot of anxiety.

    I slept at my boyfriends house that night,. but I've always felt that if II hadn't, things would have been different.

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  3. Capital of Texas RefugeeFriday, November 09, 2018 4:45:00 PM

    "Do you think other people have an order ranking on the ways they don't want to die?"

    No, actually, I don't have a list of ways in which I don't want to die because it would be a very long list.

    But since you want some dark humor (or humour, if you're Dwan the Stealth Canadian), let's see how my list might start:

    1. "Green Zone" IED full of hardened tungsten machine parts underneath the personnel carrier
    2. Shotgun round full of sharpened shrapnel laced with infectious diseases
    3. AT4 blast that chops off my knees leaving me alive long enough not to enjoy life anymore
    4. Sniper round up the ass because the sniper thinks it'll be hilarious
    5. Deep inside an underground bunker where the enemy thinks it'd be awesome to pour fifty tons of molten aluminum into the air intakes (or aluminium if you're Dwan) just to see what happens
    6. Inside a barely serviceable and once decommissioned submarine tin can that's being bombarded with depth charges by the Iranian navy
    7. Terminated with extreme prejudice by a futuristic weapon whose operational parameters nobody currently alive is capable of understanding, let alone how it actually works (such as an "ontological perimeter defense weapon" like something out of a Maurice G. Dantec sci-fi novel, but Google that and see how far you get)
    etc.

    So, come to think of it, you shouldn't have one of these lists either. :-)

    Oh yeah, in the words of Frank in "Blue Velvet" ...

    NOW IT'S DARK :-)

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  4. Oh - it hasn't even begun to get dark in here. Being shot is really low down on my list. You can actually stay alive for a very long time fully engulfed in fire.

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  5. You have no idea ...

    BUT HERE'S YOUR HALLOWEEN PRESENT A BIT LATE :-)

    1. When the tungsten hits the armor of the personnel carrier, the occupants' can be liquefied because of overpressure, and then if pieces penetrate all the way through, the liquefied parts can be sucked out the hole.
    2. The Ebola crawls its way through you, along with the spinal parasite eggs, so even if you survive, you're not going to like it (and neither is your surgeon).
    3. You don't go out like that knight in the Monty Python flick.
    4. It pops through you and then the pressure differential on exit sucks some of your major organs out.
    5. Have you watched any "ant mound casting" videos lately?
    6. If the charges hit close enough, there's no need for the hull to be penetrated because the shock will deliver fatal concussions to the people inside.
    7. As what purports to be your immortal soul comes in contact with divinely powered ablative armor, the "ontological perimeter defense weapon" notices that you actually sold your soul to the Devil while you were in college, and so it incinerates your mortgaged soul on the spot, along with the rest of you.

    So ... burning to death?

    That's so absolutely normal it didn't even make the top 7.

    No, we're much too hard-core here to think much about that. :-)

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  6. I don't have a list of ways I don't want to die, but if I did, anything that would result in a long lingering death would definitely qualify for it. Had a bit of a cancer scare, end of last year/beginning of this year. Turned out to be a benign cyst. The surgeon was a bit surprised by how calm I was about it. I told her that until pathology confirmed it was something to freak out over I refused to do so. Having said that, if I thought there was a wildfire headed in my direction I'd have the cars packed and the whole furry crew moved into a hotel so by gawd fast.......

    I do totally do dark humor though. At my own expense if need be.

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  7. Oh, and Snarkie ... you thought you had enough to worry about with speeding tickets from bike cops and rollers, but now ...

    Get ready for hoverbike cops.

    The training would probably work better if they'd started these drivers/pilots on helicopters first.

    Once again, I'm pretty sure these things don't auto-rotate to the ground as evidenced by the resounding THUMP during one of the landings.

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  8. Hahaha. You guys have been busy while I was working. I love the hover bike thing. Love love love.

    Ruth - so..... Bees might be right for you. Plant blackberry bushes for sure. I'm glad your stuff was benign. You sorta remind me of my Aunt. I envy people like you that don't get stressed about stuff.

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  9. Well, I get stressed, but it tends to be over other stuff. Like my parents visiting, because my mom and I only get along at a distance, but she insists on trying to maintain a close mother/daughter relationship for 3 or 4 days a year when they come out to visit.....

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  10. Yeah. Family relationships are so complicated.

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