While leaning over my commode vomiting some god-awful milky canned protein drink that promised robust health in only two carbs, I had the first of a series of questionable epiphanies that would put the notion of "worst-case scenarios" in perspective.
It took a few hours. First, I concluded that the drink boiled in the trunk of my car on the 122-degree trek home from the grocery store, and that because it was impersonating a dairy product, boiling was a bad thing. It was about to kill me. It was 3 a.m. and by 7, nothing much had changed, except the pest-control lady had arrived and was saying something about how certain bugs pop when you squeeze them, completely disregarding my nausea, about which she knew nothing. But still.
Off to work, where there were no functioning bathrooms—a minor inconvenience, as everyone who's been without a bathroom for eight hours can attest. It's particularly pleasant when one is battling a hostile and partially digested, contaminated milky 2-carb protein drink. Robust health! Not to worry, two plastic portable toilets were placed in the sunny parking lot. Is this a worst-case scenario?
Add that this all happened in the same 24-hour span that I got word that one of my older relatives busted his hip; that another, more distant one, died; that I realized I still have not done my 2004 taxes; that my cat jumped on my lap with what I thought were paws wet from playing in his water dish—not so, it was pee; my build-a-tan built nothing but another foul aroma; and I dropped a fireplace on my foot. I don't know why, but when I tell that last part, I always have to explain that there exists such a thing as a portable electric fireplace, and that my life is such that I own one, and it happened to be in my living room, in July, during a Las Vegas heat wave, and I wanted it moved, and that this alone does not constitute a worst-case scenario. It constitutes a mental flaw. Whole different thing.
The entire night and day adds up to about average in my captain's log, certainly not a tragic worst-case scenario, nothing to justify this whining. But as a series of little horrors, it began to put the Weekly's mission into view.
Most of us know to stop, drop and roll if set aflame; lie low in a tornado; and run fast from killer bees. Indeed we're living in a media beehive frenetic with worst-case scenarios—child abductions and bus bombings and Bush court nominations. No need for the Weekly to add to that.
But we do imagine a giant civic burden to address the most Vegas of life's little travesties, and offer the kind of solution that sometimes works best: Nothing useful whatsoever. It's life, after all. Nothing to get too worked up about.
Worst-Case Scenario Numbers One Through Three: What to do if you've just swallowed sour protein from a can: Be glad you don't have a popping bug burrowing into your ear. What to do if your office closes your bathrooms for remodeling: Be glad you don't have to go in a wet litter box. What to do if you drop a fireplace on your foot: Seek urgent care for your brain.
How To Escape From A Loan Shark
First: Sharks are predators and are drawn to blood. Don't bleed.
Second: Use whatever you have in your possession to strike back—a hammer, a harpoon, a crossbow.
Third: Aim for gills; as sharks are particularly vulnerable in this area.
Fourth: Two words: payday loan!
What To Do If the Airport Tells You to Sell Your Home.
• Consult R-J columnist Vin Suprinowicz and/or your U.S. Constitution.
What To Do If a Wal-Mart is Built Where Your Home Once Stood
a) You get the eminent-domain discount!
b) Pitch a tent in aisle four.
What To Do If You Can't Find "Community"
• You're new here, aren't you?
• Commu-what?
What To Do If You Find Yourself Watching the News One Night and Realize You Really Don't Give a Crap About Strip Club Scandals
• South Park, Comedy Channel. Or, comedy, C-Span.
How To Handle Door-to-Door Missionaries
• Answer the door in a towel. A loosely tucked towel. At the first mention of salvation, suck in your gut.
What To Do If You Can't Find "Culture"
• You just have to know where to look: Page 353 of Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, between "cultrate" and "cultus."
What To Say If You Spill Your Drink on a Woman in a Wedding Dress At The Sportsbook
a) "Nice rack, lady."
b) "Sorry, Ms. Hilton."
How To Escape Herd of Invasive Summer Cockroaches That Look Menacing and May Be Able to Fly and/or Bite
• Fear Factor it. Fun for the whole family. First one to 20 gets a Coke.
How To Escape a Long, Boring Cocktail Party
• "OH, MY GOD, IS THIS A HERD OF INVASIVE SUMMER COCKROACHES IN THE KITCHEN?" Use ensuing exodus to slip out unseen.
How to Kill Scorpions, Sun Spiders and Other Terrifying Beasties
• Invite to a long, boring cocktail party.
How To Avoid Being Triple-Charged For Your Lap Dance if the Song is a Multi-Song Mix Track
• This could never happen in Las Vegas' closely regulated, honestly operated, completely aboveboard strip-club industry.
How To Survive a Vicious Attack By the Bloodthirsty Mass Media
• See Escaping Herds of Invasive Summer Cockroaches; add paparazzi car chase.
How To Get Out of Taking Your Visitors To See Celine Dion Again
• If visitors are from a red state, remind them that Celine is Canadian. Blue state: Fake your own death.
How To Help the Mayor Get Off The Bar Floor and Get Home Quietly
• Get stick. Attach martini shaker to one end. Tie other end to mayor's head. Point him toward home.
What To Do If You Suddenly Find That You've Been Chain-Smoking at a 7-Eleven Slot Machine For 480 Hours
• Buy a Slurpee and a bag of Cheetos and carry on!
• Consider moving up to the plusher Albertson's slot room
• Consult
Endoflifechoices.com
How to Drink for Free at Video Poker
• If you haven't figured this out yet, please return your Nevada I.D. to the nearest government agency.
What To Do If The Weekly Doesn't Have a Half-Naked Girl On the Cover
• Check the previous week. There she is!
What To Do If You Don't Have a Pool This Summer
• See Page 14, photo.
• Consider sitting at an air-conditioned 7-Eleven slot machine for the next 480 hours.
Consult
Endoflifechoices.com.
How To Escape From a Stalled Monorail 50 Feet Above Pavement:
Survey the crowd inside. Can you stand these people for the next 10 months while repairs are made?
Step One: Pull the crowbar from your handbag or wallet.
Step Two: Pry open monorail doors.
Step Three: Tell this joke: "Why do they call it a 'monorail'? Because it only runs once a year!"
Step Four: Slip out of rail car.
Step Five: Pull garden-variety suction cups out of handbag or wallet. Attach to hands and feet with duct tape drawn from handbag or wallet.
Step Six: Think like Spider Man.
Step Seven: Climb out, clinging to exterior of train with suction cups.
Step Eight: Crawl to nearest support column.
Step Nine: Shimmy down pole.
Step Ten: Hail a cab.
Final Step: Return to monorail office for partial refund of fare.
What To Do If You Really Want To Swim At a Pool Party But You Have Cellulite
• If you have low-to-moderate cellulite: Scan the crowd. Is there anyone there you work with? Wish to sleep with? Whose opinion you care about? No? Strip, dive in, no worries.
• Moderate-to-high cellulite: You aren't invited, Chubbs.
What To Do If You Are Approached By the Water Police For Over-Watering The Lawn
• You deserve whatever happens, water-wasting punk.
How to Keep Your Lawn Alive in July
• One can, emerald green spray paint, $3.99
What To Do If the Gas Tank is Tickling "E" and You're Stuck On That Parking Lot Called the Interstate During Afternoon Rush Hour
• Panic.
What To Do If You Can't Find Your Way Out of a Casino
• Remain calm. Sit down. Survey your surroundings. Withdraw another bill from your wallet. Accept your role in keeping our economy healthy. Grow old with a club card around your neck.
What To Do If You Want To Enjoy The Cool, Refreshing Waters of Lake Mead
• Think about that next time you're over-watering your lawn, punk.
What To Do If You Get Lost Hiking in Valley of Fire
• Smack head repeatedly and say, "I'm so stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
How to Pay For Unnecessary/Panicky Emergency Evacuation From A National Recreation Area
• Two words: payday loan!
What To Do If There Isn't a Starbucks Within 50 Feet
• Enjoy the South Seas island you're apparently shipwrecked on.
What To Do If You're Caught In the Line of Gunfire
• Begin by bending your body into a ducking-type position, perhaps behind a large, solidly constructed man. Refrain from angry or confrontational vocal outbursts. Under no circumstances make a pretend gun with your thumb and finger and try to fire back.
What To Do If The Freeway You're Driving On Suddenly Turns to Two Lanes of Potholes and Pebbles
• You're new here, aren't you?
• What's the problem? What'd you get that SUV for anyway?
What To Do If Your Home A/C Quits
Step One: Fiddle with thermostat.
Step Two: Pull out the old rotating fan from the basement. (What? No basement?)
Step Three: Fiddle with thermostat.
Step Four: Exit house and search for large A/C unit, probably in back yard; possibly on roof.
Step Five: Kick A/C unit.
Step Six: Return to house.
Step Seven: Fiddle with thermostat
Step Eight: See Page 14, photo.
Our thanks for inspiration to The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht.