Whether stepping into the holiday season with excitement or trepidation, it is upon us. Holiday safety, whether you realize it or not, is of the utmost importance.
Thanksgiving, Black Friday Holiday Safety
We turn our clocks back and Thanksgiving follows shortly thereafter. Plan a strategy on the busiest travel days of the year. Make sure you are tanked up and invest in a power station with a compressor and jumper cables.
If you are flying, check in your gun if you’ve got reciprocity in your destination state, aka, “free America.” If you haven’t flown with your gun, you’ll need a double locked hard case (don’t use TSA locks), declare it at the ticket counter, and hand carry to TSA. Scan the TSA website. Chances are you will know their rules better than they do, so be prepared to absorb the ass-wound once buffoonery ensues.
On the day after Turkey Day, don’t get sucked into the shenanigans of Black Friday. It’s not worth the heart burn.
If family members do get drawn in to this rookie play, tell them to keep their wits about them. Don’t get caught in the white. Check your target fixation and stay visually aware. Parking lots are a good place for would-be scammers who wait for you to back into them.
Once you find a place in the parking lot of Walmart (what I call the epicenter for disaster planning), perform a scan near and deep. Smash-and-grabs are a common theme around the merry ol’ holidays. If you lock eyes, even for a second, with a piece of dung waiting for you to let your guard down, you have taken away his ability to prey on you. A predator, just like in the wild, does not want to get caught.
Driving & Prepping
Don’t overlook the roads when it comes to holiday safety. As you are driving the roads with all of the other experienced and well-trained drivers out there, stay vigilant. Drive the roads like you are playing chess.
On those two-way 55s, make sure you’ve got your seat belt on. Think of it this way: That car coming at you at 60-plus miles-per-hour, they have your life in their hands. That 17-year-old girl who’s texting or that 70-year-old man who’s been out day drinking to escape the bane of his bitching hag wife, they decide whether you live or you die.
If you live in those parts of the U.S. where the weather gets bad, don’t wait until a storm is forecast before you go and stock up and milk and bread. Milk and bread?! WTF?! We don’t plan to fail, but we sometimes fail to plan. You should already have a generator, gasoline, water, first aid, light, food, fire, first aid, coffee and booze!
The cars in your driveway need a full tank of gas This should always be the case. And no, just because you live in the north does not mean you know how to drive in the snow.
Good citizens shouldn’t be punished for being stupid enough not to be prepared prior to a crisis incident. Make sure you are not among the idiots.
Concealed Carry Christmas
Christmas hits us smack in the face. It sneaks up quick. There is where holiday safety needs to ramp up.
There is no better feeling than to have all of your stupid gifts bought weeks prior. Poking around the mall with all of the other ill-prepped dads the day before Christmas is an indicator that your planning skills suck!
If you are a trained gun handler, you should be carrying. You should also have your CCW permit. It is your duty and responsibility to protect and serve; to protect yourself and your loved ones and to serve your community as a responsible and trained gun handler. You need to be your own first responder. You should also have performed a few dry fire reps, seeing how you are likely wearing a couple of extra layers.
Post-Holiday Gym Pledge
Now that you’ve thrown caution to the wind and have turned into a gluttonous, gelatinous mess, you feel compelled to get back into shape. After all, New Year’s Eve is next. It’s what I refer to as “amateur hour.” Is buying a new calendar really that big of a deal?
The first of the year obviously follows New Year’s Eve. Yay! You are going to join a gym! Don’t bother! If you are capitulating to practices of yore, where the calendar is telling you to turn over a new leaf, it won’t stick. Trust me, you are a lost cause. Keep eating processed shit. You need to draw inspiration from somewhere other than the calendar.
Super Bowl Sunday
One month later is Super Bowl Sunday. This is one of my favorite days of the year, and not because of the game.
No, I will not be watching. I do not support the bad behavior that the NFL condones. If any of the bad behavior bothers you, yet you still watch, you need to STFU. You are not allowed to bitch about it. You are paying their bills, so you do not have a dog in the fight. Which, by the way, are OK to torture if you are in the NFL. The debauchery goes way beyond kneeling for some cause.
On Super Bowl Sunday, I have impunity to do whatever the hell I want to.
There are fewer people on the streets on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day. I can walk Home Depot and plan a project by myself. I can walk the aisles as if I own the place.
Or I can take my bride to any restaurant and sit where I please and have all of the staff’s attention, so long as that restaurant does not have a TV.
Or I can rent a car and practice threshold breaking, boot legs, J-turns and kissing apexes on pretty much any street.
It is also a day of the year where I feel that I need to stand guard. I feel that the nation is extremely vulnerable because every man woman and child is hunkered down fat and happy screaming at their TVs while they graze on frozen appetizers, bottomless bags of chips dipped in processed cheese food stuff.
Rest easy. You are exempt from duty and I’ve got your back. If your holiday safety prep isn’t enough, I will be on guard.
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