STAGE FOUR: Forrest blames his coauthor, Erich Krauss, for not somehow saving coffee. He searches for him far and wide in order to beat him senseless.
STAGE FIVE: Forrest attempts to find a coffee substitute. He chews bark from various trees and eats bugs that appear similar to coffee beans in shape and color. He gets diarrhea and is finally able to shit again.
STAGE SIX: Forrest adapts to having no coffee.
Drinking Water
Drink as much water as you can. When the apocalypse comes, the beverage of choice will be lukewarm urine.
Television
There will obviously be no television after the apocalypse, so it is very important that you watch all the really good shows now. This will prevent you from having to kill the people who are always talking about the shows you never saw. Here is my recommendation:
1. LOST: Everyone can agree on this one. It just has this way of pulling you in.
2. DAMAGES: I am getting into it. I never thought I could like a show where the leads were two chicks.
3. SONS OF ANARCHY: It is as cheese-dick as can be, but man, do I love it.
4. TRUE BLOOD: It is a ridiculous premise, it is a ridiculous show, and it is a glorified soap opera about vampires. I love it, and so will you.
5. PSYCH: James Roday is a god. I believe I said this in the first book.
6. ARCHER: Although this cartoon probably won’t make it to the second season, the main character has become my new alter ego.
SHOWS THAT MIGHT CAUSE THE APOCALYPSE
All the British comedies that are supposedly better than the American versions. British people are just weird and I don’t get their sense of humor. However, Flight of the Conchords is okay, but I think it comes out of New Zealand. Same difference, right?
Sense of Security
I secretly think that at any minute people are going to storm into my house and try to kill me and my wife. Maybe even harm my wife’s poor cats. You’re probably a lot less paranoid, so enjoy that sense of relaxation and freedom while you still can. Postapocalypse, someone will always be out to get ya, even when you are trying to take a dump!
A Comfortable Bed
Enjoy a comfortable bed, because postapocalypse, you will be sleeping on a rucksack on rocks—and that is if you are lucky! Don’t complain how your mattress is lumpy, too soft, or too firm. Remember, a rucksack on rocks!
THINK YOU’RE READY?
So you think you’re ready now? Wow, you’re pretty confident. That’s good: the apocalypse is going to need people like you. How else am I going to find people dumb enough to walk headfirst into my bear traps so that I can steal their food?
If you want to have even a remote chance of surviving, you better keep reading because you haven’t seen shit yet. You might be ready for the inevitable, but you still don’t have any idea what that will be (or even what “inevitable” means).
Chapter 3
How Shit Will Go Down
So here we are again, at the crossroads of a looming end-of-the-world scenario. Remember Y2K and that whole deal? The world’s computer systems were going to crash, the power grids were going to shut off, planes were going to drop from the sky . . . Instead, everyone just got drunk, screwed their brains out, and then went on with life. Then, according alien-communicator Nancy Lieder, the end of the world was going to come in 2003 as a massive interstellar object known as Nibiru or Planet X collided with earth. The attacks of 9/11 were taken as an omen, and the end of times was nigh. We were all bracing (well, at least those of us that were so utterly pathetic we actually listened to a fat, old, insane woman). Again, the predictions led to absolutely nothing.
Now the next apocalyptic hurdle is looming on fate’s horizon—December 21, 2012. This date is derived from the double-wheeled cycles of the Mayan calendar, which complete their rotations every twenty-five thousand years. Strangely enough, another rotation begins right after this one ends, so I’m not quite sure how that translates into “the end of time.” But then again, I just punch people in the face for a living . . . and sometimes in the gut, or the ribs, or balls, or wherever really.
In my opinion, trying to pinpoint the day the world will end is just plain stupid. There have been dozens of predictions over the years, and none of them have held up. Instead of focusing on calendars and wheels and such, we should take a hard look inward. There are nearly 7 billion people currently running around this rock like ants on a rotting pumpkin, and we’re not exactly a gentle life-form. Instead of focusing on taking care of our home, we’re constantly thinking up new ways to waste our limited resources and create bigger bombs to blow shit up. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need an ancient calendar to tell me that there is a good chance we will kick our own asses in the near future. There is a high probability that we will do ourselves in. It’s not like we lack options. Crashing the global economy because we are too lazy to keep up with the math is a likely scenario, as is developing and spreading a viral pandemic. Can you predict when these events will occur? Most certainly not. But that doesn’t make them any less real.
I don’t have much hope that humans will get their shit together in time to avoid one of these scenarios, but even if we were to fix our greed and our population problems, we could still get our asses kicked back to the Stone Age by Mother Nature. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, asteroids, wildfires, and a stampeding pachyderm of Oprah Winfrey’s studio audience are all occurrences that can wipe out hundreds of thousands of people in an extraordinarily brief amount of time. Matters get even worse when you imagine all of these events coinciding in one perfect storm of destruction.
There are also more fantastic possibilities. Throughout the history of man, every notable culture has had its own end-of-the-world prophecy. The Vikings had Ragnarök, the Christians have Armageddon, and even the Hopi Indians of the Southwest had an end-of-time prophecy. In recent years, everyone seems to be all stressed out over the Mayans’ prediction, which states that the world will come to an end in 2012. But the very fact that people are stressed out over that one almost certainly means it’s not going to happen, so I’m not sweating it.
Regardless of how it happens, there is hope. Unless the earth is smashed into pieces, certain species will always survive. And now that humans have evolved to a semi-intelligent state and can problem-solve, it is likely that come the end of the world, pockets of human civilization will continue to exist. Maybe not always in the manner we are accustomed to, but in some capacity. If you are among the lucky few to survive the Great Purge, the big question is, Do you want to survive? To give you an idea of what type of horrible shit you will have to endure when all hell breaks loose, here are several end-of-the-world scenarios ranging from the plausible to the “you’re on crack if you honestly think this is how shit will go down.”
WHEN $12 TRILLION JUST ISN’T ENOUGH:
THE ECONOMIC APOCALYPSE
I suspect that this book will shortly end up in the dollar bin at your local discount bookstore, but if you’re one of the few who purchased it for the full retail price (idiot), chances are you have some money in your pocket to buy frivolous shit you don’t really need. You have a nice place to live, a fun little backyard, a deck with a barbecue, and classy furniture. Your cupboards are all well stocked, allowing you to regularly stuff your face to the point where you find it difficult to rise off your designer leather couch. You spend most of your time playing video games and jerking off to Internet porn. You’re happier than a pig rolling around in its own feces.
Now I want you to imagine all of it gone. Imagine that you awoke one morning to discover that all the money you have in the bank is worth less than toilet paper and all of your investments are down by a hundred percent? Although it might sound like a paranoid delusion, an economic collapse of this nature could very well happen in our lifetime.
I don’t claim to be an economist. In fact, I don’t claim to know much about nothin’, no how, but the United States has multiple ways to scre
w the economic pooch. I mean, have you ever thought about what a dollar is really worth? You know you can get something for it. For instance, a dollar will buy you a bag of chips, a soda, or get you a closer gander at a stripper’s meat curtains. We are told that it has value, and everyone in society has agreed to assign it value. But it’s just a piece of paper. What is backing up its value?
FORTUNE COOKIE WISDOM
I always thought that if enough people thought shit was gold, you could start crapping in a bag and spending it at the grocery store. That’s why I bought my house when it cost a bazillion dollars. I knew that it wasn’t worth that much, but since enough people believed in that value, I thought I would be fine. What the crash of the housing market taught me is that the only things of true value are those that will help you survive, which translates to food, water, and fertile land. So all those shiny things that we tend to place a shit-ton of value on, such as gold and diamonds, are pretty much worthless because they don’t serve a purpose. Take my advice: buy a shit-ton of cows instead of a house. Gold sucks. I can only assume we have attached value to it because we like shiny things, like magpies do. All gold is good for is filling your teeth, and that’s just because it is a malleable metal (yes, I’ve been looking for the opportunity to use the world “malleable”).
Well, it used to be the gold, but in 1973 the United States completely separated the value of the dollar from any form of the gold standard. Separating currency from an actual physical asset allows governments to print as much money as they need to fund their pet projects, like running the country. Although this is pretty normal, and in moderation can be healthy for economic growth, flooding printed money into the economy in times of economic stress artificially solves problems without curing the underlying conditions that created the economic stress.
With a sudden overabundance of paper, the value of the dollar drops, while the prices of goods and services go up. This is called inflation, and although most of us are accustomed to this seemingly natural occurrence, under the right conditions, it could royally fuck us. If we were to take on a large amount of national debt (which we already have), and belief in our government to pay back this debt suddenly became substantially weakened (which it has), inflation could lead to a little situation called “hyperinflation.” (I always thought that when you place “hyper” in front of a word, it made that word better. I guess I was wrong.) It is pretty much the same thing as regular inflation, just severely magnified. At that point, money basically becomes paper with photos of really old white guys printed on the front. The worst part? Being so rough, it doesn’t even make good toilet paper.
THINGS THAT WILL LOSE THEIR VALUE AFTER THE APOCALYPSE
The majority of things that hold value in our society now will be absolutely worthless come the apocalypse. For example, that shiny iPod you possess, your smartphone, and your day planner will be fucking worthless. Another thing that will lose value are your stuffed animals. I know they are really sentimental, but they will be fucking worthless. Except, of course, for my stuffed animal Mr. Tibbs. He will still be very valuable . . . Won’t you, Mr. Tibbs . . . yes you will. Look at you, with your little button nose.
If in a very short period of time money lost its value, prices for living essentials like food and shelter became more than what people could pay, and jobs dried up left and right, our buying power would evaporate. This means that the goods and services currently provided to us by countries around the world would get a whole lot more expensive. Ever been to a third-world country where the exchange rate is like two hundred to one, and you end up paying a couple of hundred pesos or baht for a beer? If the value of the dollar dropped far enough, the same thing could happen here in the United States. Imagine a world where a lap dance or pregnancy test cost $6,000. Terrible . . . simply terrible.
This would inevitably lead to some pretty pissed-off folks walking around. There would also be some pretty pissed-off nations. Such a situation could go beyond a serious economic depression—it could lead to civil unrest and possibly even war. Unlike the collision of the earth with a “backdoor” asteroid, which you will learn about later, there are ways to spot this type of apocalypse. Below I have included some of the things to look out for (I’m telling you, the house of cards is falling, and I can smell the shit hitting the fan . . .).
1. High Unemployment: This is pretty obvious. If people don’t have jobs, they can’t go snorkeling in the Bahamas, pimp out their ride, or buy their stripper girlfriends the breast implants they really, really need. Everyone stops paying their debts, and suddenly banks and other lenders don’t have cash coming back in, which prevents them from lending to anyone else. But it is not like the banks are overly eager to lend money because no one has a fucking job. When unemployment gets super high, say 25 percent, start really worrying.
2. Rising Interest Rates in the Ten-Year Treasury Bill: The ten-year Treasury bill is one of the ways the government raises money. It issues these bonds as a kind of IOU to the person or country buying them. In addition to paying back the loan, the bonds also pay interest. Usually the interest rate is quite low because the U.S. government’s credit rating has always been strong, which means people believe they will cough up the cash when the time comes. If you see interest rates on the ten-year start to rise, it means that the government is having trouble selling the bonds and is trying to entice buyers. If the rate goes over 5 percent, it’s time to start worrying. Because of the high interest rates, the U.S. government will have a very difficult time paying up on the loans. The rest of the world will no longer see the U.S. credit rating as strong, and suddenly finding buyers for U.S. bonds will become a lot harder. If this happens on a global scale, where many countries’ debt is sold at exceedingly high interest rates, it could result in a global economic meltdown.
P.S. It’s all happening right now . . . Scared? Not scared enough.
3. A Sharp Rise in Jock Itch: Although this may not seem like an economic indicator, it is. The less people have to spend on goods and services, the less they tend to spend on nonessentials. Without a job to go to or cash to spend out on the town, people will spend a lot more time at home. What will be the first thing they cross off their shopping list? That’s right: soap. With laundry and personal hygiene becoming secondary to food and shelter, our unclean nut sacks will be spending a lot more time inside equally soiled underwear. The filthier your crotch gets, the more worried you should become. For all practical purposes, you should look at your junk like a Richter scale, but instead of measuring the magnitude of an earthquake, you will use it to monitor your level of filth. If it registers an 8.0 on the Cheese-Sack scale, it won’t be long before the shit goes down.
FORTUNE COOKIE WISDOM
Sorry, but we traded our country for shitty plastic toys. We bought worthless items from China which they made through slave labor, and in turn they used the money to buy U.S. Treasury bonds. So, China has bought our debt, and now they own us. I learned the other day that we are in danger of losing our credit score, and I’ve been torn up about it ever since because I’m not sure what’s brought me more happiness: a stable, democratic government or those really cheap, lead-painted Tonka trucks I buy every time I go to the toy store.
4. High Oil Prices: If gas prices get too high, people can’t afford to drive as much, which means they go out less and stop spending money. As a result, fewer things get sold and businesses stop being able to pay their rents or mortgages. People start to get laid off. In addition to this, transporting food and harvesting crops gets more expensive as a result of the rise in the oil prices, causing food to get more expensive. Those who are still employed need to pay more for commuting to and from work, which makes it harder for them to buy food. A vicious cycle, really. Although high gas prices should not cause you to go out and buy a bunch of guns (you should already have done that), when this is coupled with an already crippled economy, it is important to keep your eyes peeled and plan your escape routes.
ECONOMICS 101
> For those of you who were completely lost on the last section, I am going to give you a quick lesson on economics. Basically, it all started with the barter system. In the old days, people would trade animal pelts for prostitutes (kill a beaver, get a beaver—that was the motto). Then we came to the New World and traded smallpox blankets to the Indians for their land and pretty much everything else they had. (What a fucking deal that was.) Eventually people stopped accepting smallpox blankets, and with just cause, so we agreed there should be a common united currency. For a while that was gold, but with gold being a pain in the ass to carry around, someone had the bright idea to use paper. They printed the portraits of a bunch of really old dead guys on the cover and called it money (yes, this didn’t happen until the late nineteenth century). As this money thing caught on, you could use it to get really cool shit, like Happy Meals and all that great stuff for our bodies and environment. But getting increasingly lazy, we grew frustrated with all the counting, and decided to replace money with magical cards. These cards worked for a short while, but then a group of rebels blew up the buildings that stored all the records of how much everyone owed, leading to anarchy and eventually the apocalypse. The End.
5. A Drastic Dip in the Amount of Blow Jobs Dispensed: This indicator is in direct economic correlation to the increase in unclean genitalia described previously. With human funk being the new perfume and cologne, random afternoon blow jobs or “the shining of the bean” will all but vanish. Think you could endure the sour taste and terrible odor? Imagine going down on a homeless person (I tried to convince Erich that he needed to do this for research purposes, but he wouldn’t go for it) . . . Think about it for a while, and then get back to me. If matters get so bad that crackheads stop giving so much as hand jobs because you are too stinky, it is only a matter of time until the world as we know it ends.
Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down( A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse) Page 10
