Getting Ready for My Root Canal and the Collapse of Society

It's a rainy Friday morning, and I'd usually be at work by this time, but I'm not going in today because I have an appointment to get a root canal at 11. I'm not very excited about getting a root canal, but I've had a tooth ache for several days, and the whole ordeal has severely dampened the mood of the week. I will be glad to have it over with. It's going to require 3 appointments--one for the actual root canal, one for some kind of filling that will go in the root cavity, and another to get a crown on the tooth. Just typing that sentence made me feel exhausted.

But there is a bright side. I don't have to go to work today, and I'll get to spend the afternoon being lazy as I recover from the distress of the dentist's office. And also, from the standpoint of a survivalist, it's smart to have any needed medical procedures completed before the shit hits the fan.

I've been reading James Wesley's book on survivalist techniques, How To Survive the End of the World as We Know It. He's definitely something of a coo coo nut, but I dig it. It's fascinating and full of some very smart ideas. I don't want to base every life decision on a fear of the end of civilization, but it's interesting to think about and it also makes sense to have some skills for self-sufficiency.

So I've decided to learn how to use and shoot a gun, how to bake bread from scratch, and how to can and preserve food. For starters. I'd also like to turn a nice mountain farm into my end-of-the-world retreat. And I might join the Tea Party, because our government is clearly going to expand its power until it becomes oppressive.

Just kidding! About the Tea Party, anyway. That would just be crazy.

But there is something so appealing about going back to our primal nature, abandoning the desk jobs to start fires and kill elk and harvest our own food. No more commuting. No more treadmills. No more e-mails. I can understand why people invest so much energy into planning for the collapse of our society. They're hoping for it to happen so that they can prove to themselves and everyone else that they are, in the truest and most natural sense, effective human beings.