‘Prepper’ is the name given to those people who take extensive precautions to survive in the case of a major calamity such as nuclear war breaking out or the US being invaded and taken over by (say) Costa Rica or electing a socialist lesbian of color as president. These precautions take the form of heavily arming themselves, creating well-stocked bunkers, and learning skills that will enable them to survive in the wild and live off the land.
Via Rob Bescizza, here is a short film about one such person.
Brilliant.
and funny
and sad
Nice. Though I had to peel back a few layers to get to Vimeo where the actual video resides and thus enable only as much access as is necessary to see the video.
(Yes, I practice internet prophylaxis — so far, so good, even if a bit of a hassle)
Not the ending I was expecting.
I thought the husband would lock himself in and then the wife and daughter would high five each other, sell the farm and move away to a better life elsewhere.
And of course, no one did prepper better than Rod Sterling did in 1961.
This reminds me of two things:
One, an apocryphal story/urban legend about a man whose secretary invites him over. He strips in the living room, appearing naked as his co-workers come out to surprise him with a birthday party.
Two, on a darker note, it reminds me of a short story about a nuclear scare (by Ron Goulart, IIRC). Only one family has a shelter, and several neighbors try to get in. The family starts deciding who to let in (e.g. the neighbors’ kids), but some neighbors become violent (weapons, guns) at being left to die. Then when it turns out to be a false alarm, all the neighbors want to act like nothing happened, the family with the shelter saying it can never be “normal” again. The film, “The Purge” poses a similar question with its ending.
Guess who gives the house and who gets the shelter in the divorce ?
Ah, you have discovered French cinema.
After the nuclear war, when the telecommunications grid has collapsed and there are roving bands of ghouls, I have one question: do ghouls take bitcoin?
@Marcus, No. 8
++++… : )
hyphenman @4:
Not trying to be pedantic, but as a writer, I thought you would know that it is Serling.
@Johnson, No. 10…
Of course, but we all type way to fast online, right? : )
This survivalist stuff looks so silly to me. Right up until the morons explain how ready they are to shoot me. Because somehow that’s what this fantasy always seems to come down to: a wishful dream that maybe, someday, they’ll have what they can call a legitimate excuse to shoot other people.
I don’t understand why someone would spend tens of thousands of dollars on a poorly thought-out scheme that would end 5 minutes after they lock themselves in. The disaster they’re fleeing knocks out the electricity and they realize they have months of food and only a few hours of petrol for electricity, that will asphyxiate them if they use it.