Any day now it will be the end of the world. It will either
be the North Korean child despot with a pudgy finger on the red button, or
Israel making sure Iran never exports another nice Persian rug, or climate
change, or Mick Jagger coming down with arthritis. The first question on
everyone’s lips the day after the end of the world will be: what’s for dinner?
And how are we going to procure it?
One of the symptoms of the end of the world is that
transport will come to a grinding halt. Suddenly all those Engen One-Stops and Total
Petroports will have no fuel. So we
won’t be able to drive to Woolies. And even if, horrors, we walk all the way,
once we get there chances are the shelves will be bare.
But the trip to Woolies will not have been entirely wasted –
some of their outlets have recently introduced a very desirable new trolley designed
by aerospace engineers. The chassis is a
sturdy, lightweight alloy, the container part appears to some kind of advanced
carbon fibre, and most importantly the wheels go in the direction in which you
point them. Unlike the inferior wire trolleys from Checkers which insist on
veering off to the left and crashing into a hulking, tattooed body-builder who
is teetering on the verge of steroid rage.
A good trolley is the single most essential tool for
surviving the end of the world, as we noticed in The Road, and as the
down-and-outs of our inner cities are constantly demonstrating.
Sooner or later hunger will force you to take your trolley
and go out and forage. This is a bit like scavenging, only it sounds better.
But where does one start? Oh, I’ll just pick some fruit off a tree, you might
say. However it turns out that fruit is seasonal. There might not be any at the
particular time of year when nuclear winter sets in. And there won’t be any
aircraft flying in avos from Spain or organic rocket from Kenya.
Anyone who had the foresight to put in a bed of tomatoes or
beans in the backyard will be guarding it with his or her firearm. Which is
second only to a trolley as a useful Doomsday item, by the way. So you are
going to have to scan the road verges for edible plants. Good luck. All the
foliage along our roads has spent its entire life absorbing exhaust fumes, so
if in your despair you’ve decided suicide is the best option, go ahead and eat
it.
We’ve all heard about marogo, a kind of wild spinach or
chard that is reputed to be growing everywhere if only you knew where to
look. But the problem with stuff that’s
growing in the wild is that it doesn’t come with a nutrition label. We don’t
know how much energy it provides, how many calories it contains, whether it
grew in a field that contained peanuts, or even if it’s just plain toxic. It
won’t come in a handy plastic microwaveable packet so it will be full of grit
and sand and you’ll have to wash it first – but anyone who trusts
post-Apocalypse water is crazy.
Then there’s hunting and fishing. This is truly a last
resort. Fish, it turns out, do not come boned, filetted and ready to pop on the
braai in their natural state. They are exceedingly hard to catch, and if you do
hook one it will arrive flapping widely, with its head still on and its eyes
wide in fear and agony. If you find it within yourself to kill this beautiful,
sad creature, you will find its skin somewhat slimy and yucky to the touch. You
will now have to gut the fish. This is as awful as it sounds. A messy process
that it so offensive you will lose your appetite and cast the poor disemboweled
creature back into the water.
You might unwittingly crush a frog crossing the road in
front of your trolley. Frogs legs are a delicacy, so you’re in luck.
Given all this, the best solution is to work for world
peace, fight climate change, and pray for an arthritis cure.
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