Grab a bean bag chair and something to drink from the bar.
FILL OUT THE RAFFLECOPTER FORM BELOW FOR ENTRY TO WIN 1 ECOPY BOOK OF SULAN-COURTESY OF CAMILLE PICOTT
Managing Uncle Zed Author Camille Picott writing as Billy Long, a character from Sulan A Guest Post for Heather & Earth’s Book Nook September 24, 2012 Most days, it’s just me and Uncle Zed. Mom only comes home once a month from her job, so it’s up to me to take care of my uncle. He’s a retired mercenary. Before I was born, he was captured by a North Korean corporation and tortured pretty bad. Almost twenty years later, he’s still got PTSD. He has some pretty rough days, but I’ve figured some good ways to keep him calm. 1. Keep track of the land mines Uncle Zed is obsessed with landmines. Luckily, we live on 200 acres in Humboldt County. Zed can go nuts and bury his landmines anywhere he wants on our property. His current favorites are the 76Qs from Anderson Arms. They spray a neural gas that paralyzes its victims for up to thirty minutes. He’s got some of the old fashioned kind that blow up, but after he killed a few deer Zed stopped using them. I made one rule about landmines: Zed is not allowed to bury them unless I’m with him to plot the locations on my tablet. He’s pretty calm most days, so long as he can go out and bury half a dozen of them. 2. Help him stock up on ammunitions Zed has an extreme fear of running out of firearms and being attacked. Once, when Mom was away on a job for two months, I helped Zed install a hidden fallout bunker on our property. (Zed and I have funds that Mom doesn’t know about. I make black technology and he sells it.) Anyway, we cleaned out our account to install the bunker. It was totally worth it. Now we have a place to put all the weapons that Zed buys and Mom never has to know about them. Zed is calm because he has lots of guns and explosives and feels safe, and Mom is happy because Zed is calm. Life is good with the fallout bunker. 3. Trick him into taking his medication Zed always makes excuses for not taking his medication. Usually I just threaten to rat him out to Mom. That usually gets him to take it, but sometimes he’ll spit them out when he thinks I’m not looking. Then I remind him he’s a better shot when he’s had his meds. That always gets the pill down his throat. I know most people wouldn’t approve of the way I manage Uncle Zed. I say, why fix a system that isn’t broken? Zed is pretty happy and calm most days. Sure, every once in a while he’ll have a bad freak-out session. Those are the days he sneaks into the forest in full mercenary gear and spends hours shooting at imaginary attackers. But those days are few and far between. Most days, Zed is happy to hang out in his bunker and polish his guns. On really good days, I hear him singing to himself.
Thanks so much for taking part in the tour! Good luck to everyone who enters the giveaway!
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a host on the Sulan blog tour! I really appreciate it!
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