Happy Friday everyone! Fictional events make me wonder about real world possibilities today.
Ok, so after reading The Everything Theory I started thinking about Lucifer’s Hammer, a book I read years and years ago. In that book an asteroid hits the earth and wreaks havoc. The Everything Theory, while not about that, discusses a possible cataclysmic event on a global scale and it made me remember Hammer, where eventually there are roving bands of people who only allow other folks in their crew if they have some skills that are necessary for survival. Ok, a young hotty might get in for breeding (dude, post-apocolyptic and written in the 70′s – men get all caveman lame after stuff like that) but otherwise, to join you need to be able to increase the collective knowledge and survival skills of the group. My problem was “What skills do I have to offer?” I can read a book in a few hours? I can bake some yummy cookies. I can and do laugh at most anything? Hmmmm, they would definitely leave me out in the cold to fend for myself!
This is a very upsetting thought for me. I don’t know about you, but I like to have my what-if’s covered. I live in California where the possibility of earthquakes is higher than other parts of the country. I often wonder what would happen if we have an earthquake or tsumani, or I can’t get home for some reason. Tsumani while I am at work? I am washed away. Bummer. I was living in NY city during 9/11 and the tri-state blackout, I wasn’t prepared for either one but could walk the 8ish miles back to my apartment. I now live nearly 30 miles away from work so walking home will take a super long time.
There was a surfer in Lucifer’s Hammer who went out in the biggest wave ever and got squished against a building in downtown LA while riding the wave. I still think about that scene when I think of tsumanis. At least he went “down” living his dream.
I think I would have to go with cooking and plant knowledge and hope it is enough. I am not a crack shot, I don’t know how to kill and clean something (yet - willing to learn if I have to). I need to develop some mad skills just in case.
So what skills could you bring to the table? Do you have any books like this that seem to have slightly embedded themselves into your brain (or traumatized you so that you never forget them?). Do tell.
I always wonder about how realistic these post-apocalyptic and dystopian books are! As for my skills? I am very good at bossing people
That should make me very popular! Like you, I think I’d be out in the cold.
LOL – well, I will be in good company!!
Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic books always make me thing of these kinds of things. I actually read a lot about how to survive certain scenarios, like animal attacks, natural disasters, things like that just in case.
I need to read some of those books – the animal ones for sure, but the other stuff is interesting. It only helps if you are in the right place at the right time, but still!
The skills I could bring to the table are – eating chocolate, I’m really good at that. Or I could burn food, I’m really good at that too. I’m sure after the big event I would be invaluable to any troupe
Nice – you will just have to convince people that carbon is good for them.
We might fight over the chocolate…
I think I would be in charge of babysitting while everyone else was out doing the hunter gather thing! I remember that book. I think about it frequently . Looked at objectively, most people would think we are just plain weird!!
Do you think we remember it so much because it has California pretty much “falling” into the ocean? I remember someone telling me that it was going to happen when I was a kid.
My sister gave me that book and that battered paperback got shoved from one drawer to another, one shelf to another, until I finally got rid of it. Mistake?
My husband is the one everybody would fight over. I think my only skill was spotting him and clinging on for dear life. Perhaps I need to keep that skill refined.
LOL – sounds like a good skill
I don’t know why that book stuck with me so long…was good and scary. But it has been so many years, I couldn’t tell you about the writing or anything anymore. It was one my dad forced on me – glad he did.