(a practical guide to the completely ridiculous)


Civilization as we know it is about to collapse. It will happen any day now. Just ask your local "survivalist" lunatic. He or she will tell you that it's coming, and it's coming soon.

(We'll set aside, for the moment, the fact that "The Collapse" has been coming "Real Soon Now" for close to two decades.)

Personally, I think the whole "survivalist" movement is a complete waste of time. I'm not saying that our society is stable and our way of life will never be threatened -- not by any means. What I believe, however, is that if anything does happen, it will happen in unexpected and unpreparable ways.

If you take a close look at your unfriendly neighborhood "survivalist" you will see a person with absolutely no social skills whatsoever. This person is completely incapable of functioning in a normal social setting (except, perhaps, with others who share their particular brand of brain damage). This is why they turn inwards and spend their time stockpiling canned food, guns and ammunition, camping gear, and other such things. The only way they manage to get through each day is by desperately clinging to the false hope that the society they are incapable of functioning in, will fall apart someday soon. Then, by golly, they'll show everyone how cool they are! They'll live on bottled water and MRE's while skulking about in their fatigues and wrapping their homes in sheet plastic and duct tape!

Perhaps these people have seen "Mad Max" too many times, and are just wishing so hard for a world of chaos and anarchy that they really believe our world is going to turn into that world sometime soon. I don't think it's going to happen. But what if it does? In that unlikely event, here is an easy, three-step process to follow:

1. Head over to the residence of your local "survivalist" lunatic
2. Put one round through his or her head (a .22 will do just fine, but if you've got a larger weapon, messy is good!)
3. Survive on his/her supplies for a few days, until you realize that an oppressive but organized regime has taken over, then go home.

There you go. Survivalism for the rest of us. The more astute readers among you will notice that this piece was written expressly to annoy the hell out of one specific person. If you are that person, congratulations on finding this page. Now go discuss it with the rest of the folks over at the IG Hate Club. It'll be a great laugh for the rest of us, to watch you get all bent out of shape.