December 05, 2013

It's the end of the world.

It snowed today. We don't get a lot of snow here, so when we do it's usually a snow apocalypse. We had 2-4 cm. Snow. Apocalypse. Last year we were really lucky and only got a very light dusting one night. This year we doubled that by 10 a.m.

Today at about 4:35 the power went out. I was excited because this meant that I'd get to go home early. A whole ten minutes early. I take what I can get.

My mom was coming to get me, so I had to wait outside for about 15 minutes. It was cold. The sun was just setting. 


My phone was dying so I only got this one picture, but this is downtown at rush hour. About ten minutes later it was too dark to take a photo. I wish I had. Chaos ensued.

It took Mom an absurd amount of time to come get me. Traffic was insane. My phone wasn't working properly and I could barely make a phone call. I'm going to chock that up to everyone losing their minds over the beginning of the end of the world. It was the perfect time for a zombie outbreak to start.

What if the power never came back on? The whole city was out. I'd called home, but the answering machine didn't kick in. I knew the power was out all over.

When Mom did show up, the drive home was insane. The power came on for about five minutes, then went out again. What should have taken no more than ten minutes took a half hour. 

People were losing their minds. Traffic was gridlocked, it was getting really dark. Pedestrians were trying to cross the streets, but loose four way stop etiquette didn't really leave any room for them. The roads were getting icy. I was so glad that I'd been picked up. Walking home would have been a nightmare, down pitch black, slippery streets.

Other drivers wouldn't let us in, almost rear-ending each other in an effort to keep their place in the slow moving lines. It was human nature at its finest.

We drove down a side street and passed a parked police van. A block later we came across a man laying in the road. He'd fallen off his scooter. There were a couple pedestrians there with the guy, but Mom stopped and put her fourways on to stop anyone behind us accidentally running him over. I jumped out of the car and ran down the street, waving my arms to try and flag down the cop. I must have looked like a crazy person, because the officer didn't notice me until I was right up next to his window. It was all good though, because he thanked me and put on his lights to go look after the fellow on the ground.

Power was starting to come on at this point, grid by grid behind us. By the time we got home it was like driving into a black cave, leaving civilisation behind us. We were only inside long enough for me to get my headlamp on before the power came on for good.

All this got me thinking, though, as to how we would survive in a crisis. Earthquake, zombie apocalypse, global power outage...  And I came to realize a few things:

First, Karl and I have enough toilet paper and paper towel to buy protection/barter for food.

Second, some people need to work on loving others enough to let them merge into traffic. I'm pretty sure you have to be a team player and work with others to survive some sort of global crisis.

And, third, not to toot my own horn, but I think my mom and I would do pretty well in a crisis. We'd make friends and gain a crew by helping people and flagging down cops. And if that failed we'd barter with bathroom paper products.

I've totally been doing my Couch to 5K training, though, so I think I could outrun a few of the selfish hoard. That or Karl could just fix us up some pretty tricked out cars so we'd make it. 

One last thing...

I always thought that living on an island would be a huge benefit when the end of the world came, but I'm starting to doubt that. I mean, zombies can live under water so they could totally make it over here eventually, and if everyone handles themselves like they did today I so do not want to be in a well populated area when it all hits the fan. There's nowhere for all the crazy people to disperse to.

2 comments:

  1. You know what's weird, people act the same way when it snows here. You'd think Alaskans would be used to the snow and ice, and I'm not suggesting people be reckless, but at the same time...if it's 30 degrees and barely sprinkling snow, there's no reason to drive 20 miles an hour on the highway. ("Highway" being the 45 mph road between our house and town.)

    Living on an island COULD be an okay thing...you just might need to buy a boat. Then you can come here when the zombie apocalypse happens - we're about as far away from "well populated" as you can get.

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  2. I kind of wish I lived in a place where life shuts down after 2 inches of snow. Instead, we get 5-10 inches in a day and Angel's work and my school say "What? You don't want to drive on unplowed country roads because you think you might get stuck in a snowbank? What a ridiculous excuse!"
    I like staying in my house when it's icy and snowy, and that's exactly what I'm doing today!

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