For a while now, the CMOAT and I (and presumably most everyone else who lives in New York City) have been getting booklets from the City on surviving various emergencies - hurricanes, avian flu outbreaks, the rise of the ravaging undead, and so on. All of them emphasize the importance of having one or more portable survival kits in case of an evacuation. We’ve mostly ignored this stuff. After all, we live in the middle of a high-rise apartment building on Roosevelt Goddamn Island, which may as well be Raccoon City as far as any escape plans are concerned. If there’s so much as a strong breeze, we’re fucked.

However, we also watch a lot of survival reality TV, because who doesn’t like the sight of a grown man skinning a squirrel or pissing on his clothes to keep cool? People who have better taste than we do, I guess. But it’s clearly had some effect on us, because we’ve come to the conclusion that when the Rapture arrives, we don’t want to be the ones eating squirrels and smelling like piss. So we decided to pick up some basic supplies like battery-free flashlights and a couple of water bottles.

But what’s remarkable is how easy it is to get sucked into the nuttier end of the survivalist spectrum. One minute you’re shopping for water bottles, and the next you’re envisioning an apocalyptic scenario that might require both freeze-dried jambalaya and a quality set of snowshoes. We managed to escape without either, but it was a very near thing. Just think - you could use the snowshoes to beat off a mob of angry zombies who wanted your jambalaya. And your brains.