Apocalypse Bunkers

Doomsday Bunkers Experience Sales Bump

Normally I put “real” news items in secret posts, but this was too peculiar to hide.  Apparently in light of the uprisings in the Middle East and the Japanese earthquake, the sale of fortified bunkers (or reserved rooms in larger deluxe models, insert your own Hotel California joke here) has increased dramatically.  For me, the novelty of having my own radiation and biological weapon proof room stocked with protein bars and enough novels to last me 10 years is enough to tempt me.  I mean, what else was I going to do with that $200,000 I won betting on the ponies?

Oh, the $200,000 model only gets me a tent and a bottle of vodka?  Hmmm.  Well how about $20 million?  I would hope a pool, Zachary Quinto, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Allison Janney, Joss Whedon and Aaron Sorkin–all of whom will be perfectly willing and capable to draft and perform little plays for me every night while I sip margaritas.

But assuming Mr. Quinto et al. are unavailable (the only logical explanation being I lost them in a coin toss to someone else), whom would I invite to join me in my game of hide and seek with the end of the world?  I hear there’s an excellent new horror film about a group of 9 or so individuals who get stuck in a bomb shelter underneath New York City and slowly go insane.   Since I would prefer to survive the end of the world, my question is this: what makes people turn?  You would think the survival instinct would be pretty strong, so is there a balance to strike between the various stress factors and the highly effective habits of life prolongation?

Wow, is that actually a word?  I’m not getting any squiggly red lines so I guess so!  Anyway, factors!

Cabin fever presents various complications, and so inviting any claustrophobics would be a no-no.  But what about the shelter makes people crazy?  For one, I imagine absence of natural light.  Also boredom, lack of information, stale air, fear of the ungodly horror going on up above (where no doubt zombie carebears are cavorting about, skinning humans and wearing them like dresses, insert your own lotion joke here).  But with the right group of friends, couldn’t you turn it from horror movie into chipper buddy comedy?  You and your Sassy Minority Friend kicking back the beers and having daily squabbles over who’s hoarding the monopoly money while trying to figure out how to weasel out of the College Dean’s lousy rules?  Err… you know, because clearly there will be several bunkers interconnected and one will have a dean-like curmudgeon who prohibits after-hours parties.

This is my proposal: A standard Doomsday Bunker Roommate Matching System.  Kindof like Match.com only the stakes are exponentially exponentially higher.  Infinity times infinity higher.  Choose wrong, computer algorithm, and humanity dies out! Oh… you wouldn’t mind that?  Well then.  I’ll do it myself.

It should definitely be more advanced than the standard College Roommate questionnaire where they think that seeking the confession that you listen to music when you study is somehow more important than inquiring as to whether you like to eat other people’s hair or bathe in the blood of virgins.  Some suggestions:

1) How many ways do you know how to cook radioactive rodents?

2) How many TV shows on DVD can you contribute to the cause?

3) Blue-Ray movies?  Games?

4) Do you have a copy of the Encyclopedia Brittanica you can bring?  Wikipedia has ruined my ability to go without knowledge of the mating habits of the common vorpal squirrel at my fingertips.

Somehow I don’t think that species exist–but I’m in the middle of writing this post and don’t want to get stuck in a hyper-linking orgy.

At any rate, apocalypse survival plans require preparation.  Not just in stockpiling water, board games, pairs of classic boots that will never go out of style, but also the people that you’re going to be spending the darkest of days with.  You can’t just plan on inviting your friends, because what about your friends’ friends, their parents, siblings, pets.  I once started making a list of the people I would bring if I ever got a plus n invite from an alien ship to explore the galaxy and before long I had a list that was pushing triple digits.  I don’t even know that many people, but  when you consider lifetime sentences, people start getting picky about abandoning significant others and relatives.  Whatever.  I should’ve learned to be a hermit.  Then I could just go for the tent with vodka and blow the rest on angry birds updates for my iPad.

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