There's no way to protect the members of your family absolutely, but if you love them, you won't compromise their safety by arming them against biological warfare with only Bactine and a surplus respirator. The only way to prove your devotion this holiday season is with a stockpile of ciprofloxacin and the Ultimate Protector, the very finest gas mask that money can buy. Used by law enforcement and military worldwide, the state-of-the-art Ultimate Protector is U.S. government-approved, NATO-rated, and effective against smallpox and anthrax, as well as cyanide and regular old chemical gases! Other features include a dermatologically neutral face-mask seal, an extensive visibility range, and a safety valve that allows you to change the canister without exposure to any airborne threat. Children's and infant's models also available!
Adult model: $198
Children's and infant's models: $238
Available at www.healthywealthyandwise.net.
CIPRO
Cipro is a versatile over-the-counter antibiotic used traditionally against urinary tract infections, but now it's the must-have drug to combat anthrax. Sure, its side effects can include hallucinations, swelling of the lips and tongue, and severe inflammation of the colon, but that's just evidence that it's working. Cipro's going at a premium these days, so buy now, while you still can.
Get 10 pills for $30, 50 for $150, or 100 for $250 at www.medicationx.com.
SHOOTING CLASSES
Pacifism be damned--if you're gonna survive during wartime, you and your loved ones better learn how to shoot a gun. A basic course in handgun use can cost anything from $70 at Wade's Gun Shop & Indoor Range to $195 at the Firearms Academy of Seattle--but keep in mind that you get what you pay for. Wade's offers a four-hour quickie class, while at FAS you get a full 18 hours over three days--plus all FAS instructors are "graduates of the Lethal Force Institute"! In between is a one-day basic course at InSights Training ($125). All three offer advanced courses, but InSights has the most comprehensive selection, including a pepper-spray seminar and classes in Defensive Folding Knife and Defensive Shotgun. Basic courses all provide you with the necessary equipment, i.e., a gun, though you will need to pay for your ammunition. Wade's and FAS also offer women-only classes with women teachers.
Check out their websites for locations and details: www.Insightstraining.com, www.wadesguns.com, and firearmsacademy.com (for the Firearms Academy of Seattle, which is actually about two hours south of the city).
A CANARY
You might think the most popular bird of this patriotic season is the bald eagle, or perhaps the hawk, but fashionable New Yorkers are snapping up pert yellow canaries--which aren't just for coal mines anymore! Bred as poison-gas detectors since the 15th century, these delightful fowl are exquisitely sensitive to a whole array of nasty gases and neurotoxins. So when your canary goes south, put that gas mask on but quick! Unfortunately, canaries won't keel over from smallpox, and the jury's out on whether they'll succumb to inhalation anthrax. Still, the lovable canary remains the animal lover's best bet for eco-friendly poison detection. So inject a bit of toxin-detecting sunshine into your loved ones' homes. Buy them a canary!
Animal Talk (6515 Roosevelt Way NE, 526-1558), Fin & Feather (901 NE 45th, 545-7958), or Petco (809 NE 45th, 548-1400): $90-$120 (more for good singers).
A BURQUA
Whether you're male or female, Christian or Jew, in the event of a Taliban invasion, there's no quicker, easier, or more effective disguise than a burqa. Concealing the entire body (including the eyes), a burqa is a bunker unto itself, a whole anarchic country contained by an enormous swath of fabric. Blush, grimace, masturbate, stick out your tongue at your new Al Qaeda leaders--you're protected!
Deluxe full custom-made burqa from Muslim Sisters Boutique (www.msb.mainpage.net): $87.99-$98.99.
FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAMIC TERRORIST REPELLENT SUIT
In the likely event of a Taliban invasion of the United States, where will your loved ones turn for protection? To their closets, of course! When it comes to matters of both style and self-preservation, nothing compares with the gift of a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist repellent suit. Fashioned entirely of bacon, this two-piece wonder is a foolproof shield against hand-to-hand combat with fundamentalist Islamic terrorists--who are resolutely forbidden to touch pork! For extra protection, add a porno necktie--those Taliban motherfuckers won't even be able to LOOK at your loved ones, much less slit their throats and bury them in mass graves!
Making the suit is easy. Just purchase a casual suit in your gift recipient's size (Value Village has good suits dirt cheap) along with 20 pounds of bacon (we recommend Bar-S thick-sliced double-smoked, $3.69 per pound at QFC). Then grab your stapler and get to work. Those Allah-loving terrorists won't know what to do when your loved one strolls proudly by in a pork 'n' porno combo! (Refrigerate after wearing.)
A GOAT
The most felicitously flexible of working animals, a goat provides milk, meat, hauling (of very small objects), and companionship in your bunker. However, contrary to everything you've learned from Looney Tunes, goats cannot exist on a diet of tin cans alone. Share your rations. The Gedemark Ranch website--if the Internet isn't completely shut down by the war--has lots of information about caring for and (should it come to that) slaughtering your new friend.
(Word to the wise: Avoid Tennessee fainting goats, whose muscles tend to lock up when frightened, causing them to freeze and tip over.)
Goat from Gedemark Boer goat ranch (57004 N SR 225 NW, Benton City, WA, 99320, 509-588-4114; www.greatgoats.com): $400-$600.
'GUNS & AMMO' MAGAZINE
In times of war, ignorance of weaponry is a one-way ticket to extinction. To prepare your friends and relatives for combat with the new enemy, there's no better gift than a subscription to Guns & Ammo. Ostensibly, Guns & Ammo is about hunting game (water buffalo, forest bears, rare birds), but in truth the only animal that matters to the magazine is the human animal. Guns & Ammo offers detailed information about gun care, how to disassemble and reassemble your weapon, and what kind of firepower you need and can handle. But above all, Guns & Ammo instills in its readers a warm respect and admiration for The Gun, making it as basic and consumer-friendly as a Walkman or microwave oven.
Twelve-month subscription to Guns & Ammo: $11.97
SELF-DEFENSE LESSONS
What would your loved ones do if attacked with an anthrax-laced knife? Could they fend off multiple assailants trying to hijack a plane? And with the surge in concealed-weapons permits in the U.S., do they know how to engage in pistol combat?
Professor Bradley J. Steiner does--and he wants to teach your loved ones how! A 10th degree black belt and licensed hypnotherapist, Steiner specializes in "all-combat, total self-defense" at the American Academy of Self Defense in North Seattle. At the academy, students learn everything from stick and knife fighting to WWII commando close combat (complete with gouging, biting, and kicking). The combat training is complemented by mental and physical conditioning, making Steiner's course the perfect gift for every would-be fighter on your holiday list.
Introductory one-on-one course (including four half-hour lessons): $155. For an appointment, call Bradley Steiner at 532-8642.
MAIL-ORDER BRIDES
Should the glorious U.S. of A. come under attack by the Taliban, it's very likely those Allah-loving motherfuckers will steal, maim, or kill all our precious women. So why not help your survivalist friends prepare for the worst by providing them with replacement women from overseas?
The easiest place to find a mail-order bride is www.goodwife.com, also known as "the wife warehouse," which features women from Asia, South America, and Russia. If your lucky gift recipient happens to be a brother who's "keepin' it real," there are lots of fertile Nubian women available at www.africanprincess.com. Either way, nothing says "Happy Holidays!" like a sexy foreign lady with gummy stamp residue on her back.
Mail-order bride: around $1,400 (plus immigration fees and airfare).
THE 'RAMBO' TRILOGY
Here's the perfect gift for getting the fighters on your list ready to take on a whole army of USA-haters, armed only with fiery rage, bloodthirsty patriotism, and a small arsenal of hand-held automatic weapons. After a long dry spell in the wilderness of unfashionable jingoism, the Rambo Trilogy--First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and Rambo III (1987)--has made a stunning return to the forefront of our cinematic psyche. Nothing warms a holiday heart like the sight of Sylvester Stallone charging headfirst into Afghanistan (!) to rescue his old commander, fighting off the entire Russian army in the process... except perhaps Sylvester Stallone charging headfirst into Vietnam to rescue all the POWs, fighting off the entire Vietnamese army in the process. American wish fulfillment was never so hypermasculine.
Rambo Collector's Pack DVD: $39.95/VHS: $29.98
Available at video stores, or online at Amazon.com.
FIRST-AID KIT
In even the best of times, every American needs to be prepared--and a significant component of proper preparation is a good stock of emergency medical supplies. Now that we're smack-dab in the middle of goddamned jihad, "emergency" has taken on a whole new meaning, and basic first-aid kits aren't going to cut it anymore--Band-Aids and tongue depressors won't save a man missing his occipital bone!
So give your loved ones the gift of personal wartime security with www.practicaltrauma.com's emergency trauma tackle box. Lightweight and efficient, it includes not only standard first-aid supplies but also a survival blanket, trauma shears, five oral airways, syrup of ipecac, a C-collar, Insta-Glucose, and even a penlight (for those midnight attacks). The perfect gift for the aspiring EMT in your life!
Hard case: $169.95
Soft case: $149.95
Available at www.practicaltrauma.com.
A CAN OF CORN
To the common eye, a can of corn is just a common grocery item. But in the hands of the fighters on your list, this seemingly harmless object blossoms into a ferocious instrument of carnage. Invading terrorists will hoot, "Ho, ho, ho!" when approached with this stealth weapon. But when you slip off your sock, drop in the can, then swing it high to make satisfying contact with their skulls, you can bet they'll never scoff at a can of corn again! After the clobber-fest, your loved ones can dine on the nutrient-rich kernels, plus, when the can is empty, the jagged lid makes a killer Chinese throwing star. Truly a-maize-ing!
Can of corn: 79 cents
Available at all grocery (and many convenience) stores.
COMPOSTING TOILET
When the power grid's down and potable water's at a premium, what are your friends and loved ones going to do with their poo? Recycle! Aw, don't go wrinkling your nose just yet--people have been fertilizing crops with their own excreta for years, millennia even! In fact, right here, RIGHT NOW, in Washington State, farmers pay good money to fertilize the crops YOU EAT with gently named "biosolids," straight from Seattle's toilets!
There are a variety of waterless, electricity-free composting toilet systems on the market that don't use the harsh chemicals of your typical Honey Bucket. Sun-Mar offers a stand-alone composting toilet, the Excel NE ($929), or a system for the entire house, the Centrex NE ($929-$1,469), where two or three potties are connected to the central composter. All your lucky gift recipients have to do is turn the crank on the composter every now and then--and at the end of the "digesting" process, they'll have some lovely fertilizer for their victory gardens, as potent as anything from the hind end of a cow!
Plus, as an added bonus, up to 97 percent of your lucky composters' daily psychotropic drugs (Prozac, Ritalin, LSD, what have you) is excreted in their urine. When that waste is reused as fertilizer, this drug residue leaches into the soil, and from there into delicious Prozac-enhanced tomatoes. Talk about thrifty!
Sun-Mar toilets are available from the Environmental Home Center, 1724 Fourth Ave S, 682-7332, www.built-e.com.
FROZEN SPERM
Just because you're killed by a terrorist attack doesn't mean your life has to end--here's the gift that keeps on giving, even after you're dead! Freezing your sperm to give to a surviving loved one or friend is simple: Just wank into a sterile cup, then deliver your spunk to Swedish Hospital's Center for Reproductive Technology, where experts will expose your specimen to a cryoprotectant liquid that slowly freezes the sperm to minus 196 degrees. The sperm is then stored safely in liquid nitrogen, where it remains dormant until needed. Freezing sperm costs between $300 and $400, with an additional $130-a-year storage fee. However, as your sperm is to be given as a gift, the process gets a bit tricky. According to FDA rules, donors of gift sperm must undergo rigorous STD testing, wait 180 days, and do the tests again. Only then, and $2,000 to $3,000 later in test costs, will the specimen be available for giving.
