Far be it from me to find fault with anyone who advocates being prepared for future emergencies. It’s much more important that people store food and necessities against future shortages than to examine anyone’s personal reasons or methods for doing so. But I do admit wincing a bit when I come across those who are making their preparations in all the wrong ways and for all the wrong reasons, as the public often judges such people as representative of the entire Prepper movement. So I cringed a bit as I watched an episode of Wife Swap this past Monday night.
Viewers were introduced to the Stewarts, a couple with young children who fancy themselves “survivalists.” Unfortunately for the rest of us whose preparations are based on real world indicators of future financial uncertainty, this couple was motivated by a television special warning of the Mayan calendar’s “prediction” that the world will come to an abrupt end on December 21st, 2012.
Grover and Dawn Stewart anticipate any number of ways this end will occur: massive earthquakes, gigantic sinkholes that will swallow cities, solar radiation, a magnetic implosion of the earth -you name it. Whatever form the catastrophe takes, they intend to survive it.
So they prepare for the end by doing everything they can possibly think of. Except exercise, from the looks of the two of them.
I don’t mean to come off as catty, but it stands to reason that if the matriarch of this family truly believes that hard times are a’comin’,
she would do all in her power to make sure she was physically fit and up for the challenges ahead. The ability to endure expected difficulties should, you would think, be of utmost importance to such a person. Instead, it appears Dawn Stewart has made it her goal to represent Survival of the Un-fittest.
Make no mistake, the Stewarts truly believe the world will end next December, without a doubt. As the wife sinks into the couch like Jabba the Hut, she listens to her shlubby hubby tell us how they’ve already come up with a way to benefit from the approaching apocalypse.
“We are taking advantage of No Interest/No Payment deals until 2012,” he tells us slyly, “because we’re not gonna ever have to pay for ‘em.”
The camera takes us room by room as the wife goes down the list of some of the booty they’ve scored. “We got the TV, furniture for the house, our bedroom set.” She has a grin on her face as wide as a satchel. This is clearly the best thing about knowing everyone on earth will be dead next year except them.
“When the payments start coming due,” Grover scoffs, “there’s not gonna be anyone around to collect.”
The self-satisfied look of joy on the faces of these two is something to behold. They’ve scored big, and all because they know something the rest of us do not. They are absolutely thrilled at how clever they are.
There may be valid reasons why consumers may be forced to default on their credit card payments in the near future, and then there are reasons that the law won’t excuse. One such reason is fraud.
These two geniuses just looked into a television camera and giddily informed the whole world how they are committing deliberate, intentional fraud. I was reminded of the four Pittsburgh teenagers who recently robbed a grocery store of $8,000.00 in cash, and then went home and posted photos of themselves online triumphantly displaying all the loot.
The world may very well end by December 21st, but if it does, I don’t anticipate it will happen by an implosion of the planet. As the popular phrase goes, if and when the world ends, it will represent “The End Of The World As We Know It.”
That phrase “as we know it” is key. It means that the prosperity and comfort we have come to know as our accepted way of life for the past decades may well be coming to an end. Austerity and scarcity will be the order of the day. The good times of plenty as we have known them will most likely be replaced by a long season of belt tightening frugality.
The earth is not likely going to cease to exist, and neither is most of the population. “The future” will not simply evaporate and disappear. What is likely to happen by the end of next year is what is already happening today: for most of us, life will change, and not for the better. It will not be the end of the physical world, but the end of the way things had been for so long. The end of the world as we knew it.
People will still be alive and kicking; it will just be more difficult to stay alive as the cost of living continues to rise. People in debt will find those debts will continue to come due. And yes, there will still be someone around to collect on them.
Here is what I would say to the Stewarts. If there were a motto to encapsulate the thinking of those of us who are serious about preparing for future contingencies, it might be summed up in these three words:
“Don’t Be Stupid.”
Previously by Rock: Some People Just Have Bad Manners
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