Hell Is for Real, Too : A Middle-aged Accountant?s Astounding Story of His Trip to Hell and Back (9781101571026) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Hell Is for Real

  Raging at God

  The Five Stages of Dying

  The Rooms of Hell

  The Throne Room of Satan

  Meeting Satan

  Satan’s Rebuttal

  The Tour: It Was the Worst of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

  Everyone Is Old in Hell

  My Return to Earth

  The Journey Home

  Hell Time

  Eyewitness to Hell

  Dying and Dying Again

  Why I Decided to Share This Story: The Coming Events

  The Most Important Facts About Hell

  Little-Known Facts About Hell

  Things to Do in Hell

  Eternity with Morrie

  Most Interesting People You’ll Meet in Hell

  Satan’s Favorite Jokes

  Ways to Ensure You’re Going to Hell

  Things Worse than Hell

  Epilogue

  A Final Word from Satan

  A PLUME BOOK

  HELL IS FOR REAL, TOO

  SKIP HUSSEIN SHMULEY was born in Topeka, Kansas, during a tornado at 4:20 p.m. on April 20, 1969, the son of a pawn shop owner and an amateur ballroom dancer. Like so many young men growing up in the 1970s, he dreamed of one day becoming an accountant. In the words of his eleventh grade guidance counselor, “Young Shmuley has a burning desire to change the world, one spreadsheet at a time.”

  Shmuley got his accounting degree from Cornell in 1991, and finally passed his CPA exam in 2008. He and his current wife and family live in Barstow, California, where the average July temperature is “hotter than hell.”

  Since his return from hell and the publication of this book, he’s been traveling across the United States on the raving lunatic circuit, preaching about the coming apocalypse with the help of a homemade sandwich board. He’s also enjoying the freedom that comes from postvasectomy sex and postvasectomy masturbation.

  In his spare time, after having a restraining order overturned, he coaches the high school girls’ lacrosse team.

  His other hobbies include competitive eating and being cuckolded by his wife.

  Praise for Skip Shmuley and Hell Is for Real, Too

  “Skip Shmuley takes the reader deep into the bowels of hell, sloshes them around, and craps them back out again.”

  —Mark Twain

  “The lamestream media hate this book, so I love it!”

  —Sarah Palin

  “Loved it. A tour de force!”

  —Charles Manson

  “I think this will make a great Pixar movie.”

  —Hosni Mubarak

  “Love the book and admire the man. I checked him out thoroughly.”

  —John McCain

  “Reading what lies in store was enough to change my life around.”

  —Hugo Chávez

  “Hell is heinous.”

  —Keanu Reeves

  “I want more money.”

  —Jose Reyes

  “If you readjust one phony, made-up book about religion all year, read Heaven Is for Real. If you read two, try this one.”

  —The Vatican

  “Don’t steal this book; it’s not worth it.”

  —Abbie Hoffman

  “Shall I compare this to a burning bag of doggie doo?”

  —William Shakespeare

  “Dibs on the movie rights!”

  —Leni Riefenstahl

  “A fatwa against Mr. Shmuley.”

  —Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  “There is a hell. Oy vey.”

  —Osama bin Laden

  “If hell is the punishment for making people suffer, I am so sorry I made Alabama.”

  —God

  “Shmuley’s vision of hell is worse than even what I have seen.”

  —Jenna Jameson’s gynecologist

  “I think I could play the lead when it comes to dinner theater.”

  —Don Knotts

  “Hell is much worse than being seated next to me.”

  —The crying baby in seat 17C

  PLUME

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Books (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, November 2011

  Copyright © Skip Shmuley, 2011

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Shmuley, Skip.

  Hell is for real, too : a middle-aged accountant’s astounding story of his trip to Hell and back / Skip Shmuley.

  p. cm.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-57102-6

  1. American wit and humor. 2. Hell—Humor. 3. Devil—Humor. I. Title.

  PN6165.S49 2011

  808.8’0382023—dc23

  2011032125

  Set in ITC Galliard

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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  ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON

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  To the almighty Supreme Being,

  who watches over all of us and determines

  our fate and destiny.

  By that I mean either Satan or God.

  Acknowledgments

  There are so few people to thank who made this book a reality. This book would not have been written if my Dad had worn a condom. So thanks, Mom and Dad; it’s amazing what a night of Riunite on ice can lead to.

  Next to David Rosenthal and everyone at Plume: you’ve always been inspiring and encouraging, helping me in every way as I went about sharing the tale of my journey. And to my current wife and kids, the single m
ost sarcastic thanks imaginable, as they were completely not helpful and incredibly antagonistic about this whole venture until they realized I was getting paid and that when I die and don’t come back, they will share in the cash. So they think.

  To JM, DM, SM, RM, and JK, you know who you are . . . you are those odd people who prefer initials.

  And finally to my Scoutmaster Mr. Giffords, who really helped shape my worldview and taught me that what happens in a tent stays in a tent. Or to quote him verbatim, “Boychik, what happens in Resica Falls campground stays at Resica Falls campground.” Which was true until the moment when my trip to hell triggered my repressed memory syndrome. Who knew there wasn’t a merit badge for testicle tickling? Well now the world knows.

  Prologue

  In April 1966 Time magazine raised the question: “Is God Dead?”

  In April 2011 Time asked: “What If There Is No Hell?”

  I can’t answer the former . . . but I can attest to you that hell is in fact very, very real.

  I know.

  I was there for a long weekend.

  This is my story.

  Hell Is for Real

  All the world knows the amazing story of little Colton Burpo, who nearly died during an emergency appendectomy and then, while in a coma on the operating table, went to heaven. His father’s book Heaven Is for Real has sold over a million copies and deservedly so. Only a cynic would believe that an evangelical pastor whose son had heard fifty-two thousand Bible stories from him over the years would then, after realizing the family owed thousands in medical bills, do the following: (1) prompt the young lad with leading questions; (2) elicit a story about Jesus, angels, and a God who is “really really big”; (3) write a book with a professional author; and (4) make big bucks off of it.

  Heaven . . . and hell forbid that would ever happen.

  It is only the nonbelievers and jaded agnostics who doubt good men of the book and cloth like Pastor Ted “Meth and Men” Haggard; Reverend Jimmy “Come Blow Gabriel’s Trumpet” Swaggart; Reverend Jim “Shake Your Booty” Bakker; Reverend Eddie “Drop Your Pants, Lad, and Let Me See Your Key to Heaven” Long; and, of course, Terry “Burn, Baby, Burn” Jones. These men are so honest and decent that God himself has ensured they live the lavish lifestyles they so richly deserve. As it is written in Celestines 1:27:Thus saith the Lord, he who spreadeth the word of the good book needeth only followeth three of the ten commandments for it is yea my belief that .300 gets you into heaven or the Hall of Fame.

  But this is my story, not the Burpos’—and it is as real to me as the story Todd claims Colton told him. And I would swear with my hand on the Holy Bible and say, “If I’m lying send me straight to hell”—but as you will see, I’ve already been there.

  Final Four weekend calls up memories of classic basketball games, drinking beer, eating chips, and spending hours in a sports bar watching games with friends. But the Final Four weekend of 2010 was a big deal for other reasons.

  It was a Friday afternoon. April 2010. Like a lot of guys, I scheduled my vasectomy to coincide with the NCAA Tournament. My wife and I had decided after Little Timmy that we’d had enough. Personally, I was feeling financially strapped, with eight kids between two different wives and one paternity suit still being adjudicated by Maury; plus, the current wife had been foaling out a kid every few years, so we agreed that spring 2010 was the perfect time to get the old tubes tied. The plan was foolproof. Get snipped on a Friday, lie in bed Saturday through Monday night, embedded in ice, and back to work at my accounting firm on Tuesday. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend three days. Watching basketball and staring at my swollen testicles. The idea was once this was done, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and half the NBA, I’d never have to worry again about wearing a condom.

  The vasectomy procedure is outpatient. First they have you come in and pleasure yourself so they can get a “pre-operation sperm count” to compare with your numbers after your tubes are tied. They even give you magazines to help along the way. (I chose Car and Driver to start and then finished with Guns and Ammo.)

  It’s always a bit awkward when you hand the specimen cup to the nurse, so for laughs, I gave her a half-eaten Dannon yogurt left over from lunch. One taste and she knew it wasn’t real.

  After that it was onto the operating table. They covered me with a sheet and asked if I wanted to be mildly sedated or knocked out. Being a bit of a chicken, I asked for the full knockout. They put the mask over me and within minutes I was out. Or was I? It seemed I was trapped in a half-conscious nightmare. I could hear the “snip snip” of the doctor’s Dura Shears and the comments of the nurse over the size of my organ. She was really not impressed. I could feel the tugging as they tied me up. And then I was wheeled into the recovery room.

  That’s when the problems started.

  Maybe it’s due to health care reform; maybe it’s because my urologist is an illegal immigrant running a clinic in his basement. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that within minutes my balls began to swell up like Miss Iowa four years after she wins the crown. I could feel my fever spiking and soon I heard one of the nurses saying, “We’re losing him . . . eh.” Turns out they’re illegal immigrants from Canada.

  At this point my chest went into spasm and I could actually feel myself leaving my body. As I looked down I could see the doctor and two nurses working on me. They were desperately trying to jump-start my heart with a pair of jumper cables. I could feel nothing: either I was dead or my body is just used to nipple clamps.

  Then I could hear crying and screaming. My wife had burst into the room. She was hysterical that she hadn’t been there to see me die. It had always been her wish. There wasn’t a night in the past ten years that didn’t go by where I would say, “How can I make you happy?” and she would reply, “Overinsure and then die in front of me.” We have a typical marriage.

  The real world began receding faster than Prince William’s hairline. I was pulling away from my wife faster than I do after sex. Then, suddenly, I saw a tunnel and a light, a brilliant, all-encompassing, warm light. I could see Jesus, with his arm around Muhammad, and Moses and Buddha and Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard, Zeus, the Great Pumpkin, and that Wiccan priestess who works at the Starbucks near my house.

  Then Jesus spoke.

  In Spanish. (Apparently he’s a big fan of Rosetta Stone.)

  Jesus looked at me and smiled—I never felt more safe. He was amazing: six foot three, buff, perfect nose, blond hair and blue eyes, just like everyone who lived in the Middle East a couple millennia ago. He raised his hand to give me a blessing. And then he yelled, “Have fun in hell!!!”

  The hysterical laughter that erupted from Muhammad, Moses, L. Ron, and the other guys was a sure sign that this was how they spent their days, taunting people with a bait and switch.

  As I watched them return to their poker game, the clouds crumbled beneath me. The laughter got fainter and fainter as they vanished from sight and I realized I was hurtling down the Highway to Hell....

  Raging at God

  During the time my body was on the operating table my soul was going straight to hell. Looking up, I saw everything. My wife laughing and crying at the same time, slurring her words from too many wine coolers, demanding to see—and I’m quoting here—“the head sturgeon.”

  I could see the doctor trying to calm her down as they both reached for the bottle of sedatives she carried with her twenty-four/seven. I could see the doctor slap my wife to end her hysterics. I flew into a rage: why couldn’t I have done that?

  The doctor told my wife, “We’ve lost your husband; he’s gone.”

  My wife answered, “But he’s got his iPhone, can’t we track him?”

  As I continued my descent, I saw the final images of life here on earth. The sun. Clouds. Flowers. My wife dry-humping a male nurse in a broom closet.

  My heart raced, I couldn’t get my breath. Desperation, panic, and frustration washed over me like waves over Osama bin Laden. I was all
alone, at the entrance of hell.

  All of a sudden, an old man appeared. It was the official greeter of hell. Think of a Walmart greeter only older. His name was Oscar. At first I was in denial. I kept saying to myself: “I can’t be dead, I have so many things on my bucket list that I’ll never get around to doing on earth. This is just a bad dream and soon I’ll wake up, as I do every night, to my wife’s cleft palate snoring.”

  The tip-off that maybe I was dead and in hell was the fact that the room temperature was approaching sixteen thousand degrees; plus, the loudspeakers were playing the entire Taylor Swift discography (which, I have come to realize, is really the same song).

  I was getting hot under the collar and, in fact, everywhere else. I directed all my anger at Oscar.

  “Why am I here?” I screamed. “How can you do this to me? Isn’t this a misunderstanding? Why is it so hot here? Does anyone have some SPF 6000?”

  I raged for fifteen minutes straight. I was as apoplectic as Maria Shriver when her maid was five weeks late. Oscar stood there motionless. Then slowly, methodically, he reached his hand up, switched on his Miracle-Ear, and said, “Can you repeat that?”

  I continued my tirade. I was abusing this old man like he was an orderly in a Medicaid-funded nursing home. Then I threw him a changeup. Out of nowhere I asked, “Where can I find deodorant?”

  He said, “Aisle eight.”

  I knew it! He was an actual Walmart greeter. This is where they all go when they die, which is actually a step up from working at Walmart. At least Satan pays union wages.