A Small Victory

post-apocalyptic preparedness

A Long Island school district has stockpiled potassium iodide tablets, which can protect against thyroid cancer in event of exposure to radiation from a nuclear disaster.

Parents were informed of the purchase and were given the choice to opt out of if the need ever did arise to administer the tablets to the students.

My question is, why bother? Isn't this a bit like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound? Sure, you won't get thyroid cancer in the future, but then again, if there is a nuclear disaster, your future isn't looking too rosy anyhow.

This serves as much purpose as sticking your head up your ass in the school hallway when bombs are being dropped from overhead. Sure, your limbs may fall off eventually and you'll glow in the dark and perhaps look like the kids in this family after a while, but don't worry - you won't come down with thyroid cancer!

This all got me to thinking about potential disasters - bombs, nuclear devices, tidal waves, the wrath of God, etc. - and what I would do in the event of one. The answer is pretty much the same for all of them: Die.

I live on an island. I share this island with 2.65 million other people. I'm not fleeing, because I won't be able to. The only way out of here is to head for the bridges. The hell with that. If my choice is to die sitting in traffic or to die at home I'm choosing the latter. And honestly, in the event of a nuclear attack, where the hell are you going to run to anyhow? I am not about fleeing for the sake of fleeing.

I figure we can all overdose on a lethal combination of Tylenol, that prescription codeine I have laying around, and some other stuff in the medicine cabinet that probably expired a couple of years ago. We'll just sit here and play video games until we start drooling or foaming at the mouth and a blissful over-the-counter medication death takes us out instead of a tidal wave or nuclear blast or what have you.

Who would really want to live through a nuclear blast or world wide plague, anyhow? Personally, I'd rather die than have to live out The Stand. I am not going to spend my post-apocalyptic days trekking across the U.S. to find some old woman in a rocker. I'd probably head for the other side anyhow, meeting up with the dark agents of Satan in Las Vegas, causing havoc and mayhem in the new radiated world. I'll finally be able to live that life of debauchery that I always dreamed of.

Now I'm thinking that I am woefully underprepared for an emergency of that magnitude. How does one prepare for an oncoming war, anyhow? What do you stock up on so your time spent cowering in your house listening to bombs whistle overhead is spent in the most comfortable manner possible? I'm thinking a huge bottle of tequila, a generator for the Playstation, and a couple of dozen Krispy Kreme glazed donuts ought to do it. As a matter of fact, I think I should go out today and finally buy that X-Box and justify it by claiming it as emergency preparedness gear. If I'm going to die at the hands of our enemies, I may as well go on my terms.