Yet another friend called me last night to report that he’s stockpiling in his basement. Canned goods, gasoline, medicine… all that stuff he predicts may be unavailable or insanely expensive as the economy worsens and the End of Days grows nigh.

That’s right, I said it. People aren’t just talking about hard times these days, they’re talking about the end of the whole goddamn mess. Annihilation. Armageddon or some version of it where the only survivors will be those who had the sagacity to store creamed corn, Wheat Thins and iodine in their cellars.

These are perfectly sane and non-hysterical people, too. They’ve assessed the socio-economic climate, sniffed the political winds and took broad looks at all the signs of doom as they culminate. Non-believers are suddenly seeing catastrophe as foretold in scripture. No matter how they do their calculations, the solution is always the End of Days.

I had that feeling myself – it was based on a primitive sense of things rather than any concerted efforts to interpret things like the recession or a stimulus package – back in mid-summer, maybe into fall. It passed, though I can’t say precisely why. Now the feeling I get in my gut is one of a crisis narrowly averted. No logic to it, just a feeling. Maybe it’s Obama. Maybe it’s that I started watching more Family Guy and less History Channel, with their Armageddon Week and dire warnings from the Mayan calendar.

Behold my basement, which is devoid of any sort of food or medical supplies. Not a bag of Doritos or can of Band-Aids to be found down there with the spiders and summer things. Could be I’ll wander starving and sick in a cold and blackened world someday soon, and I won’t be utterly surprised if it happens. A little pissed off, sure, but not surprised.

So with all this in mind, I’m heading out to Arizona in a couple weeks for some spring training action. It might be reckless financially but the implications are even greater than that. You will recall, after all, that the final showdown in “The Stand” took place in the desert, where good battled evil for the future of humanity.

Is my impending trip just another step toward the apocalypse, as foretold in scripture and at least one Stephen King novel? Does this somehow explain my painful, lifelong allegiance to the Kansas City Royals? Was it all part of the grand plan to get me out to the desert to play my role in the dismal movie called The End of Days?

Because I don’t want any part of that, brother. I just want to watch some baseball.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.