Desert Survival Rules - July

Landscape of vibrant desert shrubs in the shadow of a mountain.
 
  1. If you are awake at 6AM – go outside and do something. It may be your last chance for a long time.

  2. When walking barefoot down the road, step on the white lines. Cars can go around you and it’ll save your feet.

  3. Speaking of feet . . . stickers are your friends. They build calluses on the soles. Don’t fret, just yank them out and move on.

  4. Don’t bother trying to remove those little cactus spines with tweezers. Use your teeth – or a friend’s teeth if you can’t reach.

  5. If your neighbor’s wasted water is running past your house. Re-channel it to water your weeds. Green weeds are prettier than yellow, but not worth the price of water.

  6. Afternoons are for napping . . . in the shade.

  7. If you hear a sprinkler out on the trail it could be a rattlesnake. Remain calm and back slowly away. Remember, most bites are not lethal.

  8. Build your walls with adobe and plant your shade trees in the Southwest corner.

  9. Don’t hurry. It will make you hallucinate.

  10. That wavery stuff in the distance isn’t water . . . It isn’t even stuff.

Amanda Barusch

Amanda Barusch has worked as a janitor, exotic dancer, editor, and college professor. She lives in the American West, where she spends as much time as possible on dirt paths. She has an abiding disdain for boundaries and adores ambiguity. Amanda has published eight books of non-fiction, a few poems, and a growing number of short stories. Aging Angry is her first work of creative non-fiction. She uses magical realism to explore deep truths of the human experience in this rapidly changing world.

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