Skippy The Scooter And Walker-Bait

By Major Van Harl USAF Ret

Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)-  If you are not a fan of the AMC TV series The Walking Dead you may have never heard of “walkers.”

These are the living dead—zombies who are taking over the world as they eat their way through the last surviving normal (whatever that means) humans.

There is this group of normal humans in Georgia that gets smaller, than bigger, than smaller again as they gain new normal folks and lose some old normal people to noontime snacks at the hands and mouths of the “walkers.”

In the Walking Dead story there is a young couple in love: Maggie the beautiful and rather hot farmer’s daughter and Glen the “Asian boy” that the farmer does not really like. In the early seasons you do not think Glen is going to make it. The normal group is always sending Glen out to do dangerous things to allegedly help the normal group survive and the “walkers” are always just missing having a Glen-snack.

At one point Maggie calls Glen “walker-bait” implying that even thought she is in love with Glen there is a very good chance he will not be around for much longer. He takes too many risks (whether he wants to or not) and as you watch the episodes you expect him to get killed. The normal people are always fighting or running away from the clutches of the next herd of “walkers” who are passing through with only one mission–that is to eat fresh humans.

What if you cannot run? The normal group is always losing someone to the “walkers” simply because the weak cannot keep up with the strong as they attempt to flee for their lives. Yes, the sick and injured occasionally get shoved into a vehicle and driven at a high rate of speed away from the attacking “walkers,” but only if said sick person is a main star of the show. The peripheral actors almost always wind up as “walker-bait.”

Now let’s move into the real world and how becoming “walker-bait” can happen to you in an instant.

Two weeks before we moved from Colorado the Colonel broke her right ankle. An Air Force nurse friend lent her a kneeling scooter that allowed her to sort of get around. The problem was there was nowhere in our Colorado home that you could travel from room to room without having to negotiate stairs. Wheeled scooters do not do that very well.

She very quickly went into a walking foot boot that greatly improved her mobility, but there would have been no running away from “walkers.” Now the daughter has broken a bone in her foot and is not in a walking cast. She cannot put any weight on the foot and has to use crutches to get around. The first thing we did was order her a kneeling scooter that has been a life saver for her senior year at college. That is, as long as there are no “walkers.”

She can maneuver her apartment hallways, get to her car, and travel the sidewalks of her University campus with some ease. The scooter’s name is Skippy and everyone wants to stop and talk to my daughter when they see her traveling to class on Skippy.

It would appear many people can relate to the need for a Skippy scooter.

Strangers tell her stories of their foot-related injuries and if only they had had a Skippy to make getting around easier. The un-reality is, if she was in Georgia and a herd of “walkers” were headed her way there had better be a fast car, very close by that she can rapidly Skippy-scooter her way into.

We have a real “walker” problem in Milwaukee in the form of gangs that swarm around normal people, beat them to the ground only to take their expensive smart phones. Apparently you can sell an iPhone for $200 no questions asked in Milwaukee to the world of crime. The modern inner-city “Milwaukee-walkers” prey on the yuppie type college students of the east side of Milwaukee and the affluent 30-somethings, of the famous third-ward of the POSH south-east side of town.

You do not have to eat human flesh to be a “walker” and you do not have to live in Georgia to become “walker-bait.” Upright healthy people are victims all the time. Add a permanent disability or even a temporary injury and you “up” your percentage of becoming “walker-bait.”

The world is not fair and the “walkers” know it and use that fact to their advantage. Envision a Katrina-type disaster striking the five state area around your hometown. Are you instantly “walker-bait” even if you are healthy and standing straight? What if you are disabled? You have to watch your back at all times and you cannot do it alone.

“Walkers” hate large groups of prepared normal people—be normal even if you are riding Skippy the scooter.

About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School.  A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI.  His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training.  He believes “evil hates organization.”  [email protected]