So, the other day I was yelling at the TV and throwing things, wondering why people keep hiding “up there”, or “in front of the glass doors”, or “without checking that.” It makes my heart hurt to see people trap themselves in a precarious position then chill for a breather. You are not safe!
Maybe that’s just television theatrics doing its best to keep me engaged.
Maybe they have a psychologist on staff who’s shrugging saying, “Yeah. People would really hide upstairs on the balcony after leaving a trail of blood behind to lead the hunters right to them. Overall, people aren’t very bright.”
Well, our lack of intelligence is supplemented by a use of tools and relay-able knowledge.
I started to wonder if maybe someone had thought about best practices for surviving dangerous situations. Like “Stop, Drop, and Roll,” when you’re on fire; or, ICE (Ice, Compression, Elevation) for when you’ve injured yourself.
Of course, like anything that may cross a wayward mind, there was an abundance of good ideas on the internet.
My personal favorite:
IDEAL – Identify, Determine, Evaluate, Act, and Learn
This method encourages the user to think. Thinking is one of the many things we seen abandoned when society falls under the stampeding feet of zombies, the eviscerating lasers of aliens or the burning mass-graves of the infected.
(Personally, I wouldn’t burn the dead because then the germy concoction that killed them is in the air we breathe and being carried on the wind to that one place we thought was safe until people started getting sick from the infected air. So, my suggestion: don’t burn the dead unless you know they can’t infect you posthumously.
)
The positive and the negative of the IDEAL method is that it can be used on almost anything. Size up your enemy. Check out your environment. Determining what to carry with you.
Here’s a group of people offering you a place in the pack; are they IDEAL?
Perfect for nearly every situation, until you start overthinking and under acting. You can’t be weighing to pros and cons on a bag of wheat things compared to a can o’ baked beans all day until you get jacked for both. You can’t spend so many of your safe hours (be them dark or light, depending on your post-apocalyptic world) evaluating your potential shelter that you don’t leave enough time to fortify it.
Hit your first three steps as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Don’t rush and get sloppy, but don’t dilly-dally and get got. Then, make an informed decision so you can Act cautiously and carefully, or else someone will be learning from your mistakes.