Last week I told you that my wife was kicking off a new project called The Post Apocalyptic Workout. She lays out the premise in a video but for those of you unable to watch it, I’ll explain the premise for it quickly: My wife is a writer and a very talented one, while this is a valuable skill in our society she worries that in the event of worldwide calamity she’ll have very few skills to offer to the post apocalyptic society. Remember the end of Dr. Strangelove when the Doctor lays out his plans to rebuild society (see plan here)? At no point in his survival plan does he mention writers so in this scenario my wife would be out of luck. To avoid becoming fodder for the zombies that will surely roam the earth she’s preparing herself by learning new skills like growing her own food, first aid, making clothes, building a fire etc… (The growing list of skills needed can be found here). It should be noted that she doesn’t believe that the end of the world as we know it is coming (nor do I), but she wants to be ready just in case, plus it will be fun to learn all of this stuff.
My role is this plan is largely to provide support, both moral and logistical. I hope to participate in some of the skill training but generally my job is to make sure that I continue working on my own projects and the house stays unburned down while she’s out training. I can do this.
Since she started this project last week I’ve been wondering where I stand in the post apocalyptic pecking order. What skills do I have to offer? Like her, I write for a living (technical writing…until I can eek out a living writing about things I care about) so I should probably be worried that I too will become irrelevant if society breaks down. You’re probably thinking “He is the first guy we throw out of the shelter” but you’d be wrong to do so. Let’s take a look at some of the skills I have to offer:
1- An encyclopedic knowledge of commercial jingles and TV theme songs: This should come in handy, after all, for most of human history songs have been used to tell stories and record events. The post apocalyptic world will surely develop its own oral tradition and I can see to it that future generations pass down the important stories of our time, like The Greater Westchester County Fair song and the theme to The Banana Splits show.
2 – A similarly exhaustive knowledge of baseball statistics and historical information: This will ensure that our post apocalyptic sports bars won’t be filled with zombies wondering how many games Terry Leach won for the Mets in 1987 (11) or where Alan Trammel was born (Garden Grove, CA).
3- An ability to get things through questionable means: This is a trait I inherited from my family and it will come in handy once commerce breaks down and everything has been looted. It all comes down to associating with the wrong kind of people, which I have no problem doing. When society breaks down and you need to “know a guy” I’ll be your man.
While these three skills are probably more than enough for me to survive. Without me we’ll be a world of struggling to remember theme songs while argiong about baseball and wondering where we can score a vehicle or some post apocalyptic porn (if this does not already exist, will someone please invent it). In addition I can also play a decent game of skee-ball and fire weapon with some accuracy so please don’t feed me to the zombies.
