Plan your apocalypse now! (Inspired by the Kims of the North)

This is something I’ve been ruminating on for a while now, and it seems fitting to post it what with North Korea strutting its stuff and firing across the border today. (In case you haven’t heard about this, please click here, here, or here. Thus far, the average resident of Daegu doesn’t seem too concerned. Also, if the south is going to conduct war games on an island that close to its border with the north, what do they expect? See map.)

Anyway, I brought this whole apocalypse question up on facebook last month when I posted the following status update: Jane Keeler wonders: What would you have in your apocalypse kit? I’m thinking tweezers. I’m not entirely sure where this thought came from, but I was plucking my eyebrows (surely you didn’t think those elf-arches were natural?) when it occurred to me that The Apocalypse is no excuse for a unibrow. I suppose one would then have to add a small mirror into the kit, otherwise the tweezers would be rather useless as far as the battle against the unibrow is concerned. Anyway, the following commentary ensued:

So, here’s the combined list: tweezers, mirror, hatchet, bottle of vodka, brownie mix, romance novel, laptop, camera, internet, dark chocolate, a cat, duct tape, twine, a good knife, a gun, beef jerky, sunblock, How to survive the end of the world as we know it by James Wesley Rawles, a sword, a dog, and rope. Hmmmm. That’s going to be somewhat cumbersome to pack, not to mention I’d have to include something for the cat and dog to eat, unless we’re all munching down on the beef jerky come chow time.

As my friend Ben pointed out, I should’ve set some parameters; it all boils down to how you envision The Apocalypse, and if by ‘kit’ you mean something portable or something more along the lines of a well-stocked bomb shelter. Do you, like Brenda, picture The Apocalypse as some kind of natural catastrophe? Or do you see it as the result of a nuclear (or even conventional) war? Zombies? Plague? EMP? (<-- There’s a fascinating, albeit poorly written, book on this topic called One Second Later, which is worth reading if you can tolerate the wooden characters and frequent use of would of, could of, and should of. Makes one wonder how a book can score a foreward by Newt Gingrich but not a decent editor.) What about alien invasion? And, of course, let’s not forget the Four Horsemen and ye olde Biblical apocalypse.

I have to admit that I was picturing my Apocalypse as something along the lines of a war zone, or perhaps an area in the aftermath of a war, and I was picturing my kit being something I could pick up and carry with me, which would help me to do some triage on the group list above.

Tweezers and mirror – in. I repeat: The Apocalypse is no excuse for a unibrow.
Hatchet – in.
Bottle of vodka – in, if I’m in the FSU, where shots could be used as currency. Out anywhere else. Replace with water bottle.
Brownie mix – not going to be able to fit an oven in my backpack, so the brownies are out. Sorry Brenda.
Romance novel – Out. I think I’d substitute The Silmarillion. It’s a long and entertaining read, and if it’s one of the few texts to survive The Apocalypse, my descendents might come to believe it to be a historical text. How awesome would that be?
Laptop and Internet – Out. I suspect the internet would go out on its own, what with The Apocalypse occurring and all. My laptop, while I like it and find it useful, is not worth saving. I would, however, put my external drive in a ziplock bag and add it to my pack, in case one day I ran across a functioning computer.
Camera – In... until the batteries die. I love my camera, but once the batteries give out (and I’m assuming an inability to recharge) it will just be a large chunk of heavy, dead weight. I would of course save the memory cards. You never know.
Dark Chocolate – Sadly, out. It melts. I don’t want melted chocolate all over the rest of my kit. Not saying I won't have any on hand to calm me down at the beginning to The Apocalypse, however.
Cat – if I have a cat with me at the time, yes. If not, no… until I find one. In which case I should probably add a cat-carrier to my pack.
Duct tape, twine, a good knife, a gun, beef jerky, and sunblock – all yes.
How to survive the end of the world as we know it by James Wesley Rawles – Maybe. I haven’t read it. Perhaps if I read it and could remember everything pertinent, I wouldn’t need to pack it.
Sword – out. Sorry, Jacob. Now don’t get me wrong, I do love swords, and I’m still pissed over the Ghetto Sword Theft of 2008, but it would be rather cumbersome, and given how terrible I performed in my fencing class at Sewanee, why would I bother? Besides, I’m already packing a gun.
Dog – only if I find one along the way that doesn’t want to eat my cat and that is willing to protect me.
Rope – In! Sam Gamgee and his Gaffer would be proud.

So… how do you like *your* apocalypse?