the accidental doomer

THE ACCIDENTAL DOOMER


I know that generally you assume only great things from the keyboard of your favorite survivalist writer. That’s me, Bison, by the way in case you forgot. Usually by Sunday after a day’s rest I am inspired to deliver on that assumption. This time it almost didn’t happen and you came really close to getting a standard space filler such as a solar water heater. Don’t relax, it could still happen. But at the last minute I remembered an amusing tale I have been meaning to share with you, how your very same favorite author of all things paranoid and apocalyptic came to be such an enlightened guru for you. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a survivalist for decades. But why did I take the dark path towards full blown despair and doom? No, I’m not talking about my unbalanced mental state. Rather, those small events in life that equal more in their sum than their parts. If it wasn’t for a few different events, I would still be content with 300 pounds of wheat berries, a water filter and a handgun. Instead, I am huddled inside my tin box in the desert, eagerly awaiting the crash of civilization. Why? Instead of just planning for a failed harvest or earthquake, caching enough supplies to cover 90% of possible disasters, why did I come to embrace the idea that we are all destined for the stewpot?

*

I could point to discovering Peak Oil, or being advised to read one or another particular book. But, really, if you aren’t already primed for that kind of message, can it ever take root? I don’t think so. Of course, having said that, I still try to preach to my minions, even though I should know better. You are living in the city, have a mortgage, drive an SUV and are content with a garden and a skeet shotgun. Not because you are ignorant or refuse to listen to reason. Because you have no reason to regard my message as the truth. Why disrupt your life and family if you don’t really believe, right? So, let’s go on that dangerous trek into my psyche and dig around a bit. Don’t worry, we aren’t going too deep. I don’t want to scare the children. Or the dogs. We’re just going to scratch the surface. And, as you might expect, as usual the cause is found in wife number two. Listen, don’t roll your eyes at me. I told you we aren’t searching too deep. There won’t be any recounting of High School gym class, communal showers, sleep deprivation brainwashing from the military, my smoking habit traceable to inadequate breast feeding or anything else. Wife number two was the closest I’ve ever come to true, pure evil and it made a lasting mark on me.

*

Have you ever been touched by a demon from the lower depths of Hell? It is a traumatic experience. Don’t judge, you unfeeling bastard. Let’s start with my honeymoon. After the ceremony we had a reception. My boss at the time was really generous and closed the station early and we all got drunk ( even the teenagers ). He left after a decent interval and we all broke out the illicit substances. A good time was had by all, and I enjoyed a pizza talking to me and my stream of urine changing into the colors of the rainbow. That night, as we were in a hotel room, I watched Tango And Cash at least half a dozen times on cable. The next morning I was feeling less than optimal and my blushing bride drove up to the redwoods. Well, it turns out that I had really pissed her off by not servicing her the night before. She was no pure virgin when we met and we had been sleeping together for a year, but she was so pissed from that night on she started denying me sex more often than not. Yes, I know, I’m an uncaring bastard, more to a relationship than sex, blah, blah. Jimmy couldn’t get his rocks off, boo hoo. Hey, I’m telling you, this was a traumatic event for me. But that isn’t where I’m leading with this. You see, I really thought this was my one true love, that we were destined to live together for the rest of our lives. So I didn’t see this as the relationship altering experience. I was totally blind. I thought it was just a normal thing where a relationship goes from white hot to a normal simmer. What an idiot I was. So, after our divorce, I was seduced by her promises that we should get back together. I still didn’t see the problem when she broke it off a week later after I had moved half way across the country to move in with her. She was kicking me out and the only thing I could do was go back to wife number three.

*

Let me explain about number three. She was a good wife. Cooked like a goddess. Wanted sex more than I did. But she was chunky when we met and put on pounds by the day after we got married. After a time the sight of her was revolting. She wanted to please me but she had a mental short circuit where any stress at all called for a Twinkie and some Doritos. So after a time she really went full blown Pear Person. Gross! I have no problem with chunky, but full on blubber is just too much. But I had to go back to her after being kicked out from #2. Needless to say, when number two AGAIN batted her eyes and promised me the moon I was eager to leave. To make a long story a bit shorter, that was the last time I switched between the two wives. I left number two for good after she threatened to call the police on me. Not because of any actual threat but because she wasn’t getting her way in an argument and that was her last card to play. Trumped up abuse charges. From that day on, all the crap from the past actually stuck with me. The threat of homelessness. The financial rape. The threat of being unjustifiable incarcerated. Having to mount the Pear Person. Only then did it all seem real, like I was no longer able to roll and slide with the punches but that there were actually forces out there that could alter my life for the worse. Before that day, I could give a crap about money or possessions. I could always get another job. I could always live cheap enough to survive a temporary financial setback. But after the drapes of reality were swept aside I could no longer be so blasé. I was now running scared for good.

*

I actually feel a bit of gratitude. If it wasn’t for that one day, and of course all of the events leading up to it, I never would have eagerly embraced the coming of Y2K. I never would have buckled down to a serious pursuit of writing. I never would have started both saving and investing. The last twelve years, roughly half of my working adult life, have been a time of transformation. One in which I’ve become more and more paranoid and fearful, but also much better prepared for calamity. Perhaps it is nobody else’s fault that I flew in such a trajectory at such a velocity but my own. Perhaps I’ve turned much too paranoid. But the genesis was a stubborn little bitch willing to ruin someone’s life to win an argument. If my one time “one true love” could be so evil, how could I expect strangers I didn’t even know to be fair or to find it in their hearts not to sacrifice me in their own pursuit of pleasure or wealth? I certainly couldn’t. I had always been withdrawn, a Dungeon & Dragons playing nerd with his nose buried in a book. My survival strategy in life had been to avoid everyone, to hide in plain sight. After my personal wake up call I was still a withdrawn nerd with my nose in a book, but now I studied all the ways I was going to get screwed so I could take steps to minimize or neutralize. Thank you, number two, for the only time you truly enjoyed screwing me. It woke me up.

END

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