Life, liberty, and…..doomsday?

Opinion

November 29, 2012

Life, liberty, and…..doomsday?

Clay Mercer Cordele Dispatch The Cordele Dispatch Thu Nov 29, 2012, 11:31 AM EST

Pinehurst — Doomsday doesn’t seem like a good topic for what’s supposed to be a humor column, but bear with me.

For starters, the idea of doomsday, or the “end of the world,” has been on everyone’s mind lately. At least, according to the documentaries I’ve been watching since NASCAR ended its season. And, since Brad Keselowski won the NASCAR championship, I’ve begun to think seriously that doomsday might indeed be at hand.

According to the Mayan calendar, doomsday will occur on December 21, 2012. Don’t ask me how they figured that up, because every documentary I’ve watched has explained it in great detail while I snored contentedly until bedtime.

On the other hand, the Mayans had a pretty advanced civilization (if you overlook that human sacrifice thing) and their understanding of astronomy was pretty complex, so they might be onto something.

My problem with the Mayan prophecy is that, as far as they’re concerned, I’m a non-believer. Of course, as far as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons are concerned, I need to change my ways, too. The difference is that there haven’t been any Mayans stopping by during the NASCAR race trying to convert me.

There are some people (also appearing in various documentaries) that are actually preparing for doomsday. Apparently they think that this doomsday won’t be the actual end of the world, but the end of organized society: Chaos.

I don’t know about you, but I thought the end of organized society occurred back in the 1990’s, maybe around 1993 or so.

No matter, these preppers are stocking up on food and guns and ammunition and toilet paper and other necessities. They plan to survive the end of organized society by holing up in the backwoods somewhere with enough food to last them until all the unprepared people have a) starved, b) killed each other off, or c) formed a new government and turned the lights back on.

Apparently the preppers believe that the destruction of society will result in everybody suddenly becoming illiterate and wildly desperate for the food they’ve stored up. I don’t know about you, but if society really does melt down, I’m not going to rely on my pantry to get me through.

No sir, I’m going down to the Piggly Wiggly and make a deal with Brad Stephens, unless he’s somehow been turned into a mindless zombie and tries to eat my brain. As hard as Brad has been working lately, that may not be much of a stretch.

Another thing driving the preppers is that somehow, during the meltdown of society, somebody’s going to shoot off all the nuclear weapons in the world and the survivors, instead of dying from radiation sickness, will turn into zombies. I don’t see that happening.

Frankly, I’m not sure I could even find a nuclear bomb, even with a Ouija Board and Dave Petraeus as a guide. I’m also confident that I couldn’t figure out how to crank it up and launch it either. I mean, don’t the computers do all that work? You can’t run a computer with a pickup truck and a set of jumper cables, and honestly, my mechanical skills begin and end with a set of jumper cables.

Next week: how to stop a charging zombie by taking away his credit cards. Ooh. Bad columnist!

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