When You go Visit the Monsters

S.D. and I spend time being spooks, for a few reasons, none more important than any other.  When we're being spooks, though, we get a lot of comments, reactions, and wonderment at the simple fact that we put on make-up and scare the piss out of people to raise money for charities.  I'm going to attempt to respond to the many reactions and comments we've received over the years.

Do those contacts hurt?

no, but they itch like crazy and mess up my night vision.

They allow you to do this?

not only do "they" allow us to do this, but we are asked to, and all of our friends do it.  Turn off the TV sometime and check out your community, chances are, you can get involved, too.

Are those your real teeth?

no.  they're someone else's, what the hell do you think?  We went through great expense to have custom made fangs, just so we could more effectively become monsters to scare you to raise money for charities.

Your breath stinks!

really?  I hadn't noticed.  For one, I'm wearing fangs (see above) that keep me from closing my mouth all the way, and that makes one's breath turn ghastly in very short order.  For two, what do you expect the undead to smell like?  minty fresh?  You're lucky we bathed last night to get the latex out of our hair!

Wanna tick tack?

see above and be glad we aren't allowed to hit you.

You're hot. wanna kiss?

no, especially not you.  If I wanted to kiss an obnoxious drunk, I'd get SD drunk and kiss him.  Oh, and hitting on the monsters to act cool? yeah, not so much, it makes us think that you're a big asshole, and, BTW, we talk about you disparagingly after you leave the set.

No No No! Just stop! I have to pee! (or.. I just peed)

good.  we did our job. (and, BTW, you just made our night!)

Doesn't it make you feel bad to make a developmentally disabled person terrified?

nope.  not even a little bit.

How long have you been doing this?

um.. about 13 years or so, and not gonna stop now.

I'm too scared to go into a haunted house!  How do you do that?  Aren't you scared?

no.  My closest friends are hanging out with me, we all dress up like monsters to have a good time.  Monsters don't scare each other, it's bad form.  If you want to be a monster, just contact your local non-profit haunted house, they'll make going through a haunted house not scary anymore.

I can't get my little sister/girlfriend/mom/aunt to go through a haunt, how do I get them to go?

remember this: real monsters don't wear tennis shoes.  If you look down and see tennis shoes, it's just an actor, okay?  And if they really don't want to go and you make them go, be prepared to go do something you really would rather not in the future.

I can't go to haunted houses since I was a little kid and my parents made me to through a haunted house and I was so scared?

yeah, your parents were what we call dickheads.  Believe it or not, monsters are NOT cool with parents who bring little kids through haunts not aimed at little kids.  We actually think you're an asshole for fucking up your kid that way and will often hang back, trying to ameliorate the damage that you're doing to the poor little bastard.  Just leave the kids at home until they actually want to come, and at that point, they'll find the Jaycee haunt in town all by themselves.

Why do you attack women?

because they scream and we like the feedback.  If you want monsters to pay more attention to you, react to them and act scared, no reaction will get you no attention.

And to sum up, no, the monsters don't want to go home with you, they don't think you're funny when you loudly joke, if you're too drunk to know or care what's going on around you, we're just glad you're going to leave.  We love people who come out, want to have the experience, want to be scared and want to have a good time, and if you're not into that, just stay home and watch Jay Leno. 

People who haunt do it for the love of the game, not for money or personal gain, we just couldn't do it if that were the case.  October is our favorite month and Halloween is our favorite holiday, and sometimes, sometimes, we'll take out our costumes, gaze at them, longing for fall, tip back a brew,  and dream of dark and spooky places.

Nothing Likes a Virus Like Company

http://www.livescience.com/15962-zombie-caterpillar-virus.html

Is the virus making the caterpillars change behavior?  It looks like it.  Are viruses changing the way humans behave?  Quite likely so.  Makes for a good case of being prepared, isn't it?  Just some food for thought.

Before you decide to go into work with a virus or cold, think, is it you that is stubbornly not staying home to get better, or is the virus controling you?  Will it continue to control you after you start to ooze?

Zombies Are Really Just Big Varmints

Something we have not touched on so far is firearms.  Many dislike them, many eschew them, feeling they will somehow prevail in hand to hand combat, some people feel all they will need to fight a zombie is a knife held between their teeth, as they attack the zombie, naked, with only a knife and the love of a benevolent god on their side.  I'm not one of those people, neither is S.D., we'd rather, honestly, steady our aim and fire with a reliable firearm from a safe and protected distance.

It seems the rational way to go about things.

So to discuss this further, I will trust S.D. to expound at a later date, but I'm going to give you my take on it for now.  While scurrying through the zombie infested urban wilderness, a good, solid sidearm is really nothing to scoff at, but for almost any kind of distance, a good, old fashioned varmint gun is what you're going to want to have.  Really, the zombie is just a large, bipedal, less-clever but more olfactory-endowed raccoon.  A varmint.  One that shuffles, unless it's one that's got the rage, in which case, you're gonna want to be at a safe distance, in a safe location, because they just never stop, unless a leg or foot part falls off.

My favorite varmint gun is the one we call "Blonde Gun", it's a .243 from the early to mid 1960's and is about as pretty as it is lethal.  In the hands of anyone who isn't completely brain-dead, Blonde Gun is a lazer beam.  You can shoot just about anything off of anything else at several hundred yards, and at a closer range, you can blow the back off the head of a zombie with phenomenal accuracy.

Now, we stopped BUYING ammunition for Blonde Gun, because S.D. likes to load for her, and makes some pretty good loads too, might I add.  I'd strongly recommend making your own ammunition, because it has a few advantages:

1. accuracy (this takes time to get it right, and is often boring to the onlooker (wife), but really pays off)

2. cheaper

3. is a quiet form of entertainment for long winter nights (did I mention quiet?  not sure about you, but when the ZA comes, we're gonna all be a lot quieter, sose we don't attract any undue, undead attention)

4. takes basic components that can be used in other applications if needed. (?pipebomb)

5.takes no electrical hook-ups to do, and face it, there likely won't BE electricity after the ZA

So, we have the pretty. pretty gun, we have wonderful ammunition to shoot the undead with, what could go wrong?  Well, if you gotta run, guns and ammunition are HEAVY.  I'm not a fan of black plastic, and won't carry it unless under dire need or duress, firearms ought to be a work of art and beauty, black plastic simply is not.  If we WERE going to have to run, it's revolvers in every place we can put them.  I don't care so much about more and more ammunition, those revolvers will hit like a ton of bricks and hit everything you point at them, I'll deal with 6 at a time.

I have no need to fight hand to hand with a zombie, never did, I'll deal with them in a much more long range way.  Undoubtedly, there are others out there who will flash a bunch of numbers pertaining to other guns and ammunition at me and get a testosterone charge out of it all, but this is where I'm at.  We'll talk more about shotguns and things like that later, for now, get yourself a nice varmint gun and get practicing.

Keep Your Friends Close

When it all goes to hell, you can be as prepared as you want, but it's the people you keep with you that can keep your own survival bearable and even enjoyable.  Having friends in more than one place keeps things varied and keeps you engaged (and if one group gets eaten by the undead, you have others to go visit).  

Stay in contact with your friends, maintain your friendships and keep them close to you, they're important.  We know a lot of preppers who feel it's best to "go it alone", but that's not necessarily the best tactic.  Who will you bounce ideas off of, if you are only talking to yourself?  Who will you learn from, and who will you teach what you have learned?  

Keep your sense of purpose, keep your friends and take care of them.