There’s an almost giddy excitement going on in preparation for… I don’t know what exactly. Between a coronavirus resurgence and inauguration woes, I think people everywhere are paying close attention to the news. Some are prepping.
For my immediate universe, I’m not concerned. All of us the world over did apocalypse planning last year when coronavirus incubated in some unwitting American travelers on their way back from Egyptian cruises with their hieroglyph postcards and went pop pop pop in metro areas across the United States. We had our rice and beans for days. We did okay.
And even before that, we did some localized apocalypse planning in 2017 when hurricane Harvey dumped 30 inches of rain onto the Houston inner loop and sent 18 inches right into my living room.
In short, dooms-day planning feels old hat right now.
And what have I learned from all this bugging out? Well, if things are really going to happen, like really, by the time you are aware of it, the best you can do hope you don’t live in a major metro area. That’s it! Coronavirus versus natural disaster versus social upheaval versus World War Z Zombie apocalypse, these all call for a completely different bug-out kit.
And anyway, if something were really going down, we’d probably act like earthlings in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when the alien craft arrived.
It’s difficult to say exactly what the people on the surface of the planet were doing now, because they didn’t really know what they were doing themselves. None of it made a lot of sense— running into houses, running out of houses, howling noiselessly at the noise. All around the world city streets exploded with people, cars skidded into each other as the noise fell on them and then rolled off like a tidal wave over hills and valleys, deserts and oceans, seeming to flatten everythign it hit.
Douglas Adams
Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
In the meantime, there is football. And gin. And Florida sunshine.