Thursday, October 23, 2008
DISASTER!
When my vitamin water burst last week in my messenger bag (and yes I clearly earned the karma, see if I learn anything) the casualties included my charming old writing notebook, which is okay because it was much less charming than old and really ready to be switched out. Now the front cover is barely hanging on and I’ve already started toting a cool new book with pockets and a mellow retro look. I got a lot out of the old notebook but this is not the time to be nostalgic. It goes in the drawer with the others and I’m ready to move on.
Except of course, I’ve got to transcribe what’s left in it. That gives us three remaining old-book posts: something dumb, something painfully overwritten, and something surprisingly charming. Let’s start with my strengths: today we will have something dumb.
DISASTER! I scared you, didn’t I? No, it’s okay, but really, DISASTER! stalks us at every turn, lurks behind every tsunami, loiters ever more agressively in these days of nuclear proliferation and resurgent piracy. Whether by fire, flood, tremor or EMP, we can be pretty sure that our world will soon be laid waste - and that our only salvation will be our own survival skills and preparation. It’s all well and good to be a licensed ninja who can converse in all terrestrial languages, but if you don’t have what you need to get through the aftermath of devastation attendant upon all DISASTERS! worth the capitalization, all your multilingual ninjaism won’t help you for squat. You need to prepare for DISASTER! if you want to survive. You can bet that DISASTER! is preparing for you already.
The problem with DISASTER! planning is that it is dull. Checklists, buckets, tarps and latrine-sacks notwithstanding, some of the things people need to be prepared for DISASTER! are not as exciting as they could be. They lack panache. They lack bling. They bore me, and of course they bore you too. Consequently, none of us are prepared for DISASTER!. So we will be incinerated with all the other losers, and that would be socially unacceptable. A conundrum, would you say not?
Would you not say not, indeed! But I have put my inconsiderable cerebral horsepower to this question, and have come up with the following ideas that will appeal to those who will only take action if it is the biggest action possible, and who would only care to survive DISASTER! if they could do so with style:
THE IMPRACTICAL GUIDE TO DISASTER! PREPAREDNESS!
* Take no chances with stockpiled water that tastes flat and lifeless - holy water never goes bad. Make sure yours stays holy by having it blessed by the pope. It won’t go stale in solid gold vacuum tubes.
* People store canned food but forget the can opener. More effective and flexible is a thermal laser. It opens food and cooks it at the same time, and you can use it for keratotamies after dessert.
* If things are generally going well, a first-aid kit will cover your needs. In a DISASTER! it will fall far short of requirements. Instead, a full ER/OR combination should be constructed in your rumpus room, perhaps folding out from behind the dartboard or revealed by flipping over the air hockey table. Hire professional medical staff or, better yet, install medical robots.
* Batteries wear out and have limited utility. However, refining your own uranium and initiating cold fusion reactions as you shelter in place will provide you with both effectively unlimited power, and a fascinating project to keep you occupied during the long days ahead.
* People get bored of board games and cards. Far better for entertainment purposes as you wile away an indeterminate environmental recovery period, would be cryogenically frozen-and-defrostable operatic porn-star acrobats. Alternatively, multi-purpose your medical androids, if space and food are at a premium.
With these five tips in you mind, I suspect you consider yourself so well-prepared and impervious, that you will seek to trigger a DISASTER! just to try them out. Well, don’t.
