Costco and the End of the World

Costco is now selling emergency food. This is apparently the top of the line, a four person one year supply – or just over 30,000 servings of such delicious essentials as cans and cans of freeze dried potato “chunks.” When I first came across these products in one of the store’s monthly flyers, I thought “what kind of wackadoo buys this?” Thanks to the New York Times, I now know. They’re called preppers because the old term, hoarding paranoiacs, wasn’t snappy enough. With that out of the way, I have some other pressing questions.

If you are into this sort of thing, how do you decide what to buy? It seems risky to settle for 491 servings of pinto beans when you can get 621 servings of lentils for a measly two bucks more. I wonder if somewhere there’s a prepper convinced that his 39 pounds of beans in a six gallon bucket in his basement is normal, but that anyone would buy 1,384 servings of “ultimate fruit” is just overdoing it. Incidentally, I think this is the psychology behind the Hummer H2.

This stuff has a 25 year shelf life. If I was a hoarding paranoi – prepper, I would buy as much as possible. How do you know that there won’t be a catastrophic power failure in 2013, a zombie attack a few years later, and the total collapse of the economy as a result of Obamacare in 2020? Are you going to say that something that outrageous can’t happen? Thinking like that would make you a lousy prepper.

In the post apocalyptic hellscape, I probably won’t find myself worry too much about my dog.    Mostly because I’m sure he’ll never make it. The minute a zombie comes up the stoop, he’s going to be right there barking his stupid head off at the undead as if they were delivering my Mongolian chicken. Some people have invested more in obedience training than I have, and they’re lucky that Costco also sells emergency dog food. Leaving aside the probable infinite shelf life of plain old non-emergency kibble, it does make me wonder why in an emergency the dog couldn’t eat scraps of the human food (or scraps of humans themselves, since there’s sure to be some who failed to make thoughtful purchases from Costco before Obamacare kicked in) or simply be left to hunt and scavenge on its own. Somewhere under the sweater and snow booties and LED collar, it is still an animal with base instincts, sharp teeth, and a remarkable ability at self preservation. If you are dumb enough to have only bought a 1 year supply of food when the mother ship lands, you should at least have the decency to roll yourself in salt in your last minutes. That should keep the dog going for awhile.

Among the most reviewed of these items is for 267 servings of “deluxe meat.” No one wants to be discovered cowering in their basement by the Antichrist and not be able to offer him delicious (and deluxe!) “fajitas, casseroles, soups, pot pies, sloppy joes (or) tacos.” One of the reviews notes that the freeze dried sausage doesn’t really taste like sausage, as it isn’t greasy enough. Oh, to be a gourmand in the End Times! The reviewer goes on to say that the product is still relatively agreeable, and will be added to his pantry rotation. This means that someone out there is actually eating this stuff. Is that scarier than knowing that folks have been conned into spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on emergency food without ever, you know, planning to eat it?

I think I’m going to go hide under the bed. Without the dog.

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