Large Fierce Mammal

Less expensive “waterfront” property.

Lately I’ve found it impossible to swing a dead politician without hitting something that refers to the 2012 apocalyptic deadline. Apparently there’s no point in hand wringing over rogue asteroids any more because it’s all pre-determined. If you’re diagnosed tomorrow with a condition that will make your life unbearable in three or four years, forget about it. Things are about to get a whole lot worse.

The term “end of the world” means different things to different people. Depending on your depth of character, it runs the gamut from the extinction of all life on earth to the announcement that Ricky Martin is gay. I’ve lost track of how many times the world was supposed to end in the over half a century that I’ve been alive, but I can say with certainty that my earliest realization that there was something out there big enough to scare my parents came to me at the age of five as I watched their reactions to the Cuban missile crisis in October of 1962. I remember them sitting hunched over pamphlets and plans for fallout shelters, agonizing over how they would afford the necessary supplies and modifications to our basement.

In the end, the shelter never got built, but nonetheless, my formative years encompassed the hottest parts of the cold war and somewhere along the line, watching others exhaust themselves worrying over things they could neither fully understand nor control changed me. I can’t point to a specific moment of enlightenment, but from a very young age I grew up with a drive to acquire and practice the skills and mindset I would need to see to my own safety if the shit – any shit – hit the fan and left me still alive to deal with it. Long before the people in the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001 learned that it’s the uncompromising will to live assisted by the knowledge in your head and what is on your person at the moment of truth that determines the outcome for survivors, I resolved to win, every fucking time without compromise. There’s a Chinese saying that goes, “In the course of a long life, the wise man will be prepared to abandon his luggage several times.” Well before I first read those words I had discovered that if I had to walk away from where I was standing, taking only what I needed, the load wouldn’t be particularly heavy, and a lot of it could walk on its own.

The world will end for all of us one day. One by one. I personally roll my eyes at the whole Mayan calendar thing, and hold to the assertion that it stops where it does because the people who made it decided enough was enough and headed off to the pub. I spent all of 1999 reassuring people that the Y2K scare was just that – a scare. Nevertheless, a lot of my clients insisted on paying me to make them feel good, a situation those of my readers who are prostitutes will understand. The bothersome bit about end of things scares isn’t that they might come to be true. It’s that they fertilize the growth of two groups: the panic stricken and the opportunists. The panic stricken are the ones who would have filled the streets if by some stupid coincidence the power went off in their neighbourhood anywhere near midnight on or about the first of January 2000. The opportunists are the people who will rob and rape the aforementioned group. Some of these will do their robbing and raping beforehand as consultants, while others will be content to perpetrate their crimes after the fact. The part of the population I sympathize with are the ones who are so fed up with the way things are that they actually welcome some event that presses control – alt – delete on their lives.

As the days ticked down to Y2K, a lot of people said to me, “You’re a survival kind of guy. I bet you’ve got a stockpile of supplies up the ying yang.” Now, I will never casually tell anyone about any preparations I’ve made for anything, but what I did say in reply to such comments was, “No. I’ve only been stocking up on weapons, ammunition, and addresses of people who told me they’re stocking up on supplies.”

As a disciple of the Dread Prophet Murphy, I still always like to hedge my bets. I had a moment once where I thought I was wrong. As it turned out I was mistaken, but such an event makes a man careful. New Years Eve 1999 I hosted my World Domination Party at my residence that also contained the local police and fire dispatch centre. Strange but true; not to mention convenient. Invitations specifically stated the dress code – combat gear mandatory, weapons to be checked at the door. After all, there was drinking going on. The guest list was carefully crafted to include people I would want handy if, by some stupid chance, it actually became necessary for me to assume my rightful place as Warlord.

Anyway, Mrs. LFM and I are already planning our next party. Same theme, new disaster.