Fresh Hell Is All About 'Distract and Evade'

Welcome to the Fresh Hell Newsletter, where this week we offer some helpful advice for how the rest of us can protect our person from enemies both foreign and domestic.

Hello my sweet security-conscious Hellions! Don’t have a fortified Boeing 747, dedicated security team or catering truck at your disposal to help you identify, mitigate or repel threats to your person? I got you. Here are some of the advanced defensive techniques I have deployed successfully against threats foreign and domestic while existing as a non-President in the world. While your exact threat profile will vary, I hope you find these tactics useful.

Threat: The Boogieman

Assessment: As those in the security community are aware, the Boogieman is a tenacious grievance-driven actor. True to his psycho-profile, his threats to my person began when my parents insisted that he “did not exist” while he was hiding underneath my bed, well within earshot. The result was that he launched a campaign against me when I was 6 years of age that included making scary shadows on the wall, creating slow scratching and creaking sounds, and grabbing my ankles and pulling me under the bed if I tried to use the bathroom (which I never did so this danger was purely theoretical.)

Strategy: I constructed a “Decoy Kris” out of pillows arranged to resemble a Kris-sized body, covered it with a sheet and positioned it on the floor next to my bed. To maximize effectiveness, I placed my life-like “Crissy Doll with Growing Hair” with its head peeking out of the sheets. Meanwhile, I slept in my own bed, completely underneath the covers with my head covered. I was able to rest securely, despite some minor oxygen deprivation in the winter when we used extra heavy blankets.

Outcome: Threat neutralized.

Collateral damage: My sister, who slept in the bed next to me. She tripped over the decoy and skinned her knee.

Threat: Bretta Johnson, 1^st grade bully

Assessment: Bretta entered the threat board due to unknown grievances. An ally since pre-K, Bretta achieved threat designation at some point during the contentious alliance-building period of first grade. She initially recruited my allies to join her at a different table at lunch but the attacks quickly escalated to public name-calling. This trajectory culminated in “The Day of the Cooties.” One afternoon during recess, Bretta and her co-belligerents began chanting “Krissy Has Cooties, Krissy Has Cooties.” This spontaneous outburst effectively and immediately alienated my remaining allies, all whom moved to the other side of the jungle gym and disavowed me.

Strategy: While it was true that I did, in fact, have cooties, I didn’t know that’s what they were called. My mother told me she was treating me for “lice.” Due to this comms failure, and seeking resolution via negotiation, I approached Bretta and her co-belligerents to explain that I did not have these mysterious “cootie” things, whatever those were, and to ask that they stop chanting and being mean. As I moved closer to Bretta and her allies, however, they all screamed “COOTIES!” at high C over C, as only young vocal chords can, and ran away.

Outcome: Combatants ceased hostilities, though they re-engaged with a significant escalation in third grade.

Collateral damage: Bretta and the rest of the class, all of whom got cooties from me.

Threat: Sam, co-worker with a shoe fetish

Assessment: Sam presented initially as a non-combatant. He, other fellow employees and I sortied one evening to a local pub. I had deployed wearing a pair of non-regulation, extremely cute high heels. Threat appeared to take particular interest in my non-reg footwear, which I initially dismissed as a DEFCON 5 level of concern. Two beers later, the threat, seated on the bar stool next to me, grabbed my leg, yanked off one of my shoes, reached over the bar and opened the on-tap Samuel Adams straight into it. Threat then proceeded to drink from the shoe. Temporarily shellshocked by this DEFCON 1 incursion, I froze. Andrea, a trusted, experienced comrade, assessed the situation and announced that once the shoe-beer was empty, the threat was likely to launch a follow-up mission further north on my person. As threat was conservatively 6’4” and 230 pounds, distraction and evasive action were deemed necessary.

Strategy: Co-worker diverted threat’s attention by asking him why he thought the Red Sox sucked so bad that year. Once the threat was distracted, I retrieved the shoe. My female co-workers formed a shield wall (using purses) around me, and attempted an exfil to my extraction vehicle, a V-6, 5-on-the-floor Ford Probe GT.

Outcome: Exfil successful. Threat claimed no memory of the incursion due to an “allergy to alcohol.”

Collateral damage: Sam, whose popularity and reputation in the company as a solid family man was destroyed after the incident, and the shoe.

Hellions! Share your tactics!

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