<\/p>\n
Good morning.\u00a0 I’ve assembled the essential disaster preparation
\nkit just for you all in these troubled times.<\/p>\n
Let’s say you’re walking down the lane to your favorite pub
\n— it’s 11am and time for
\nyou to partake of the vibrant amber of life.
\nBut then something happens!\u00a0 An
\nexplosion in the distance — terrorism!
\nMen with beards, knives clutched in their broken teeth, running towards
\nyou.\u00a0 Are they coming from McCutcheons,
\nwhich is always closed on Tuesday’s?
\nMaybe they missed their train?
\nOne thing is for sure, these are angry men.\u00a0 And there you are, on the lane, unfinished
\nscreenplay beneath your arm, wearing a pair of jeans and your pajama tops.<\/p>\n
They stop to ask directions, the evil black smoke from the
\nvillage billowing in the background.
\nThey want to know where the local US Consulate office is and you say
\nit’s three hours south, if they catch the 13:20.\u00a0 But the 13:20 is a slow, rough ride so best
\nto wait until tomorrow and catch the 9:40.<\/p>\n
They seem disappointed and ask if your accent is
\nAmerican.\u00a0 After several moments of
\ninternal consultation, you decide to reply that it’s not an American accent
\nbut, instead, would be classified as “Upper Southern.”\u00a0 Some people say Tennessee,
\nbut you’d actually suggest it to be lower Virginia.<\/p>\n
The men scream out an oath to the brown people’s god and
\ncontinue running down the lane.\u00a0 You now
\nrealize that you’ve just had a run in with Lady Cutlington-Smythe’s gardeners.\u00a0 What do you do?<\/p>\n
Being ready for disaster seems like a difficult thing for
\nall of us.\u00a0 We’re all very busy with our
\nfamilies and our jobs and our private lives.
\nThinking ahead can pose a large problem — whether it be planning your
\nretirement, getting your tires rotated or convincing the girl next door to haul
\nyour ashes.<\/p>\n
Being ready for a disaster, however, is simpler than it
\nsounds.\u00a0 You\u00a0 can purchase most survival items the next
\ntime you go shopping — water, canned goods, Keebler Double Fudge Elves and a
\ncoordinated selection of alcohol are some survival basics.\u00a0 We all know you can use bottlecaps or young
\nwomen as currency in a post apocalyptic wasteland, if it ever comes to that.\u00a0 Surround yourself with these items, just in
\ncase.\u00a0 Young women are easy to keep.\u00a0 They don’t eat much as long as you constantly
\ncomment on their hips and they’re quite handy to have around for when you tear
\ndown the curtains in a drunken rage or rip your jeans on a fencepost.<\/p>\n
In our scenario, we present you with a very different
\nproblem.\u00a0 You’re underdressed and closer
\nto the pub than to your house.\u00a0 An
\nexplosion has rocked your sleepy community and mad gardeners are on the
\nmove.\u00a0 What should you do?\u00a0 You should continue to the pub,
\nwhere you
\nshare your story with the usual afternoon crowd — Arthur Kettlebottom,
\nOld Man
\nStacy, Marcus de Bouvier and Dirty Phil Reed.
\nNone will believe you with the exception of Old Man Stacy who, as a
\nyoung man at Ypres 2 saw this same sort of
\nthing.\u00a0 After his entire regiment had
\nbeen wiped out — most of them drowning in the mud — Stacy had sought
\nshelter
\nin a rain and blood-filled shellhole.\u00a0 He
\nhad been there with a Sergeant Major who had lost both legs and, in
\nshock,
\ndrifted silently below the water line.
\nThat mutilated man’s last words were, “Quickly boys, look
\nsharp…look sharp…”<\/p>\n
Then came the Germans.
\nThey’d had it just as bad — a ragged bunch of boys pouring through the
\nmud and stink, pounding the dead into the earth with their tattered boots.\u00a0 Haunted eyes turned to the shellhole and
\nbeheld Stacy in what the old man thought were his last moments, then the Hun
\nbastard was blown to pieces by his own artillery.\u00a0 Covered in gore —<\/p>\n
It’s here where Dirty Phil Reed stops Old Man Stacy’s
\ndroning monologue and asks what this has to do with terrorists blowing up the
\nvillage.\u00a0 The old man, now in tears,
\nreplies that it has nothing to do with the current situation.\u00a0 He retreats to his lonely corner with two
\npints of the local and, his hands shaking, proceeds to sob miserably.<\/p>\n
It’s often believed that there’s safety in numbers.\u00a0 In the case of our scenario, this is
\ncorrect.\u00a0 At Ypres,
\nit wasn’t correct.\u00a0 The terrorists from
\nour scenario have a clear destination in mind, and this frees you up to drink
\nmerrily.\u00a0 However, it is advisable that you
\nenjoy your drink outside the building and away from the main entrance.\u00a0 A picnic table located out back is the best
\noption, preferably overlooking the volunteer-maintained gardens of the ruined
\nMarmas castle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(en Espanol)<\/p>\n
El Gringo engreido es nuestro enemigo. Tenemos que
\nrevelarnos contra la garra opresora que nos estrangula. El sucio capitalista
\ndebe ser aplastado bajo la bota de la justicia. A falta de una buena
\nrevolucion, al menos hagamos que esos paranoicos turistas yanquis viajen de
\nnuevo. Por amor de Dios! un peque\u00f1o incidente y todos se esconden debajo de la
\ncama.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[353,60],"class_list":["post-2509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008","tag-post-apocalypse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2736,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions\/2736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}