Life Wants You Dead: A Calm, Rational, and Totally Legit Guide to Scaring Yourself Safe

By Evan Waite and Paula Searing

"Life wants you dead, and this book wants to be READ! Ha ha I love being a comedian.” —Patton Oswalt

"Truly hilarious!" —Jack Handey, author of Deep Thoughts

Fear!!! Scary, right? But what if the only thing we shouldn't fear is fear itself?

In this era of economic turmoil, climate catastrophe, and cliques of cool teens just waiting to make fun of your shoes, we live in a heightened state of fear. We're afraid of the world and afraid of each other—but not nearly as afraid as we should be! And this absurdly hilarious survival guide demonstrates that being afraid of literally everything is the only guaranteed way to stay safe. Packed with lifesaving/fear-fanning illustrations, sidebars, jump scares, chilling one-liners, and more, these pages will keep readers safe from the scourges of love, technology, birds, education, jackalopes, their own bodies, their homes, and the world outside their own bodies and homes. Includes a bonus foldout Fear Map lurking in the inside back cover.

A BOOK TO KEEP YOU SAFE IN THESE ANXIOUS TIMES: Anxious and fearful about the state of the world? Friend, you are not frightened enough! Never mind the asteroid hurtling toward Earth. That bird over there? It's just waiting for the chance to swoop down and peck at your eyes. Your shoelaces? Trying to strangle your feet. From the stop signs obviously attempting to dead-end your life to that creep in the mirror who looks exactly like you, danger is everywhere. And your best survival strategy is to be afraid of everything at all times.

SEVEN SCARY CHAPTERS TO KEEP YOU COMPREHENSIVELY APPREHENSIVE:

• Your Body: It Isn’t a F*cking Wonderland, John Mayer
• Love: They’re Trying to Steal Your Heart!!!
• Home Is Where the Harm Is: You’re in a Hallway to Hell
• Go Go Gadget Death: Surviving the Techpocalypse
• The Hippocratic Hoax: Defeating the Medical Menace
• Mind-Fucked: How Education Kills
• Be the Fear You Want to Flee in the World

THE BOOK ITSELF IS A THREAT: With pointy hardcover corners, pages that could slap you, and a removable foldout Fear Map ready to strike at your nerves from the book's inside back cover, this humor book is unsafe to buy for yourself or to give as a gift to everyone you love.

Perfect for:

• Comedy fans of The Onion, ClickHole, The Daily Show, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
• Fear-ridden readers of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook
• Anyone in need of a laugh in these anxiety-driven times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9781797222967

Evan Waite

Evan Waite is a co-executive producer on FOX’s Family Guy. Prior to that, he wrote on the Emmy-nominated final season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, NBC’s Sunnyside, The President Show, Our Cartoon President, Fairfax, and Kevin Hart’s Guide to Black History. He won a Writers Guild Award for his work on Adult Swim’s Three Busy Debras. In the print humor world, he contributes to The Onion, the New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs,” and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. He has also written for MAD magazine, ClickHole, and Funny or Die. He lives in Los Angeles and can be found on Twitter at @TheOhBits.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Stay Scared, Stay Safe

IN THIS ERA OF TERRORISM, ECONOMIC INSTABILITY, AND THAT CLIQUE OF COOL TEENS WAITING TO MOCK YOUR LOAFERS, WE ARE LIVING IN A HEIGHTENED STATE OF FEAR. Our hearts are pounding so loudly that librarians have started shushing them. We’re afraid of the world and afraid of each other. But not nearly as afraid as we should be. Or could be.

BOO!!!

See, you weren’t ready because you let your guard down to read words. This book could have stabbed you!

But I’m not here to judge, because I was once like you: enjoying my life like an idiot, oblivious to how at risk being happy made me. Then one day, everything changed.

My journey to fearlightenment began one morning as I left my boring suburban home to go to my boring suburban job. I noticed a woman in a reflective vest, so I politely poked her to ask what she was doing. She said she was a crossing guard and could I please leave. Then something happened that shocked me to my core: She put her hand out to a moving car, and the driver stopped.

Just then, I had a revelation: If she could stop cars, maybe I could too! I spotted an SUV zooming down the road, so I leaped in front of it and yelled, Halt! Instead of safely skidding to a stop, it plowed into me like a car-shaped linebacker.

As I dangled from the tree I’d been launched into, a feeling of powerlessness overtook me. If I could be assaulted like this in a safe community, I was in way more danger than I’d thought!

I looked around with fresh eyes and realized that I was in the belly of the bourgeois beast. Sprinklers sprayed lawns like Gatling guns. Dew-thirsty deer swarmed backyards. Balding men rode bikes, probably away from crime scenes.

Once I’d seen the truth, I could no longer traipse through life like an apple-cheeked fool, doing things I like with people I love. I shuddered to think that I’d recently taken my wife, Kiki, on a hayride without patting down the scarecrows, even though they were clearly wearing stolen pants. From then on, I had to drain the joy from myself to focus on one thing: safety.

Suddenly, I was perceiving threats that I had never been attuned to, like a radio picking up new frequencies. But how come no one else seemed as panicked as me? Someone has to shake people by their lapels and warn them how at risk they are, including from lethal lapel shakes! This book is that someone, and these words are that shake.

Look around you. What seems like a nice day is actually a 360-degree feartopia. That bird? It could swoop down and peck a chin cleft. The mailman? He knows where you live. Still don’t believe me? Let’s look at the numbers:

Every three minutes, a human head is severed and used as a volleyball.

Every four minutes, that head is thrown away because it’s too hard to serve.

Every five minutes, the head is retrieved after realizing the sporting goods store is closed so it’s either the head or nothing.

Life Wants You Dead is the only survival guide that helps you fear better. And longer. And bone-deeper. Fear is the fuel for the car that’s your brain, to help you reach your destination: out of harm’s way.

The book is divided into seven chapters, each shining a light on the overlooked dangers hidden across each sphere of life. Nothing is safe—not our own bodies, our loved ones, our homes, technology, doctors, schools, and certainly not Dirk.

Dirk is a little boy who is definitely plotting something in that treehouse of his. He makes pew pew gun sounds with his mouth, and I saw him kick a ball real hard. Dirk is always lurking in his puppy-shaped sandals and preparing to strike. For your own protection, I will regularly update you on this demon in a section called DIRKWATCH.

To keep your cortisol levels spiking, the book is interspersed with JUMP SCARES, or scary statements that pop up out of nowhere to keep you panicked and alert. Also, each chapter includes THE INTERROGATION ROOM, where I ask prominent figures the hard-hitting questions that pop into my head once they tell me who they are.

Rest assured, I’m more than qualified to lead this journey of self-terrorization. I have real-world experience with danger, having been the victim of many harrowing incidents. I’ve been hit by a truck and thrown at a bus. I’ve been pistol-whipped by my niece. I’ve been bit by just so many