Prepping and Apocalypse Fiction
I grew up in the Southern Baptist church. I was fed Genesis and Revelation with my breakfast cereal, so Armageddon and the Antichrist were normal topics of conversation.
My point being that I was primed and ready for apocalypse fiction when I discovered the genre nearly 30 years ago. My first read: Robert McCammon’s Swan Song.
Later on I read Stephen King’s The Stand. I’ve since read it many, many times, both in its original form and in King’s later, restored edition.
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a masterpiece.
Are these books the reason I became a prepper?
Oh holy cow! I’m a prepper! That sounds awful. It’s such a stereotype! I don’t fit the stereotype but sometimes I think I am the stereotype!
I am white, middle-aged, and middle class. I have a three-month supply of fresh water. I have a six-month supply of shelf stable food. I have plastic sheeting and duct tape for sheltering in place. I have enough hand sanitizer and surgical masks to ward off every known virus and maybe even the ones they haven’t invented yet. I know how to build a solar oven and a rocket stove. I have bug-out bags packed and ready. I am armed and I know how to shoot.
But here’s where I break the stereotype: I’m not particularly religious. My kids went to public school (until the public school failed to meet their needs, then I home schooled, but the curriculum was totally secular). I don’t listen to country music. I read Huffington Post. More of my closest friends are gay than are straight. I vote Democrat, for cryin’ out loud!
So why prepare for disaster?
Because stuff happens. Bees are our primary pollinators and they’re dying. Every year, it seems, we hear about some new antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria. Too much of our food is shipped over great distances, so the supply is vulnerable to transportation disruptions. Even now there’s an egg shortage because of avian flu (but I don’t have to worry about that because I have a supply of whole egg powder…go me!).
So I prep, and I hope I never, ever need it.
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This entry was posted on June 17, 2015 by Michele in Stories and tagged apocalypse, armageddon, bees, bug-out bag, disaster, egg shortage, fiction, food crisis, food storage, preppers, prepping, rocket stove, solar oven, swan song, the road, the stand, transportation crisis.Shortlink
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