According to some enlightened nutbars, the Rapture is due to hit tomorrow and people are panicking. Well, I say panicking. In fact, a very few people are smug and looking skyward, a few thousand more are selling those schnooks post-Rapture insurance and pet-housing, and the rest of us are shaking our heads and cracking Rapture jokes.
But the fact remains that someday all hell will break loose. If not Rapture, then nuclear war or asteroid attack or zombie outbreak or giant mutated lizard or just plain economic collapse. There’s no way to know for sure what will happen before, what will happen then, and what will happen after, but things will change and you will change with them or you will most surely die. Are you up to the challenge? Are you ready to face directly into either the confirmation or utter denial of everything you’ve ever believed in?
If you’re the person I think you are, you’re not only ready but eager, and you’ve got front-row tickets as well as back-stage passes to the cast party after the invasion. But there will be strange and trying times, so here’s some tips on how to spend your last days on Oith.
1 ) If you have warning, max out all of your credit cards and sell your stocks short. Buy everything you’ve ever wanted, pick up a complete collection of all the movies produced between 1953 and 1986, buy a car with your Discover Card. Why not? Borrow stuff from everybody you know, just so you can roll on it. Or stock up on ammo, non-perishable food items, chlorine tablets, and hand-cranks to recharge your iPod, just in case.
2 ) Or take your newly-gotten gain and buy a lot of land. Fence it in, a real fence, the kind that’ll bring a tear to the eye of an Arizona lawman. Build two entrances, one heavily guarded main gate and a small, hidden, back gate. Build a huge, well-lit, well-guarded, luxurious-looking house in the middle. Build a small, comfortable, hidden house by the back entrance. Live in the small house. Mount three fully automatic machine guns facing the big entrance. During the riots and insurrections of the End Days you’ll be able to sit back, free from worry, and spend your time idly gunning down the rampaging crowds that try to break in. Guaranteed hours of fun for the whole family!
3 ) If you need to go out for supplies during the violent times, wear a Kevlar suit and cover it with wiring. Put some highway flares on your chest and back with duct tape and run wires from them to an old garage door opener. Keep that in your hand at all times. Keep your eyes wide and glaring. Go about your business, no one will bother you.
4 ) Learn to give really good oral sex. Whether you’re male or female, if there’s the slightest chance that you won’t be the local tribal chieftain then you’d better learn to dive down there with a smile. There won’t be many renewable commodities that you can lay hands on in a hurry, but if you follow my advice you’ll always be welcomed.
5 ) When the sun goes nova do not look at it directly. This can cause irreparable damage to your eyes. Take two pieces of cardboard, 8″ by 8″, and paint them black. Using a needle (ask your parents for help) make a pinhole in the center of one of the pieces. Now hold them up so that the sun’s explosive force will go through the hole onto the center of the other card. In the split picosecond before you burn away screaming into a puff of greasy ash you’ll be able to see the image reproduced perfectly on the second piece of cardboard. Do not use smoked glass.
6 ) Take the time now to learn how to tell groceries by touch alone. You may have to spend quite a few months scuba-diving in supermarkets for sustenance, and this will let you scoop out the good stuff before everybody else. Lock yourself in your closet and memorize the feel of fruit juice cans, the distinctive shape of packaged ham, and discover the foolproof way to distinguish tuna fish from cat food.
7 ) Just for fun, get three friends and four different colored horses and ride through the streets in flowing robes and serious expressions.
8 ) If things threaten to get nuclear you have two choices: A. Move to where the bombs won’t hit, or B. Move to where they will. Your preference would depend on your attitudes towards Armageddon, post-holocaust living and the afterlife, and are entirely up to you. If you move to where the bombs are sure to hit, try to go with style. Move to ground zero. Paint an X spreading out from your house. Invite friends over for the Big Blowout. If you know the bombs are coming, go out there with a bat and see if you can set one off before it hits. Take some friends and a blanket and try to catch one.
9 ) Plan for your food supply. Watching for good sales at Publix won’t cut it in an aftermath situation. Instead, raise bunnies; they’re fairly cheap to feed, don’t take up much space, breed like, well, rabbits, and they make good eatin’. Leave the eyes in, though. Best part, man, really.
Also, and I’m just saying, you might want to look up which parts of your neighbors are edible.
10 ) As much as circumstances will allow, nail anything you can get it up for. Since radiation of all wavelengths will be thrown around like hairspray when the End happens, fertility might be an iffy thing and generations of the future may depend on whomever had the forethought to spread his seed from here to Tierra del Fuego. Think of it! Legions of your sons and daughters, marching under your guidance and tutelage! Your features will become the standard of beauty, you will rule as the literal father of the country. Hey, if nothing else it’s a good line to use tonight.