Apocalypse

In stories like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or Stephen King’s The Stand, or that Will Smith movie where he’s the last man alive, or I guess maybe most paradigmatically, Mad Max, you’ve got this hardy band of survivors (even if it’s only a band of one) doing all they can to persevere and carry on the human race against all odds and in the absence of convenience stores, television news, or professional sports.

Good for them.

But if it comes down to that for me, I think I’ll join the faceless masses who didn’t make it; I’m not all that interested in doing whatever it takes to make it after the apocalypse or Armageddon or the invasion from outer space that devastates the human race.

I mean, I don’t even like it all that much when the internet goes down for a morning because of fallen phone lines; it’s not that I’m a big old sissy about roughing it—although there’s that, too—it’s more that I appreciate the benefits that accrue from being a member of a functioning society. If I’ve got to hole up in my basement with a cache of canned food and an AK-47, I think I’d just rather call it a day—and a pretty crummy one, at that.

Which is another reason I’m voting against that terrible, selfish, misguided, and inane Tim Eyeman initiative I-1033. Basically, the result, should it pass, will be to help create the conditions whereby civil society as we know it is set to crumble.

Are you the sort of person who appreciates the fire department, police force, higher education, social services, and roads you can drive on? Then you should be against it.

Are you the type of person who looks forward to living on canned goods and sleeping with your automatic weapon at your side? Then you shouldn’t be voting, anyway.

Am I overstating things? Maybe, but when you’re talking apocalypse, better safe than dead.