Surviving the apocalypse while laughing at other's pain

I’ve been neglecting this thing for too long, but after our close call with the apocalypse I’ve decided bringing back my blog. It really makes you think.

Speaking of apocalypses, this has always been my favorite time of year. No, not Christmas (although it is a close second), my favorite time is the day after a failed apocalypse.

The sense of disappointment from the crazies just permeates the air, and they become desperate to find a new apocalyptic event to latch all their hopes and dreams on to.

The poster child for post-apocalyptic disappointment.

It’s great, and I love it.

I loved it when our kooky friends Ronald Weinland and Harold Camping predicted the end of the world, were wrong, promptly re-predicted the end of the world, and then were wrong again.

There’s nothing better to me than when some loony doomsday prepper out in Montana is disappointed that he can’t defend his wheat from the unprepared virgins of the world.

In order to understand why I revel in such disappointment, you have to look at where I was raised.

I come from a small town in Northern Utah where many of my neighbors and members in my ward were avid survivalists, survivalists who were more than ready for Y2K to take us into a new era of anarchy, militias and post-apocalyptic goodness.

For example my Sunday school teacher decided that the manual assigned by the Church was not sufficient in preparing our young impressionable minds for the second coming. So he took it upon himself to eschew the manual in favor of teaching us about the second coming… using his own personal research. This meant instead of getting lessons on the teachings of Christ, we got lessons in how to properly prepare wheat and lessons on the shekinah.

(Side note: Shekinah is a Hebrew word that literally means, ‘to settle, inhabit, or dwell,’ and is used to denote the presence of God. However, my Sunday school teacher told us it was a precursor to the Lord’s arrival. He literally told us that in the last days everyone will see something in the sky, and people will wonder what it is. But we will know what it is because he taught us about the shekinah.)

While every ward has its kooks, this particular kook had a whole gaggle of kooks with which to discuss their doomsday plans. And as we approach Y2K those discussions only intensified.

Now, my dad was home teaching companions with said crazy Sunday school teacher, and here is an approximate re-creation of one of their conversations directly from my dad:

Crazy Sunday School Teacher: So I just got a new shotgun this past Saturday.
My Dad: Don’t you already have one?
Crazy Sunday School Teacher: Well, you can never have too many guns to defend you property. Especially once the government collapses. I have to make sure that my family and food storage is protected.
My Dad: So does this mean that when I come to borrow a cup of flour after the second coming you’re going to shoot me.
Crazy Sunday School Teacher: Oh no, I would never do that.
My Dad: So you’re only going to shoot the ones you don’t know. 

You've seen the television show, I saw the live show every sunday

Now, I’m sure that my dad was probably exaggerating as he re-told this story at the dinner table that night. But after participating in some of this particular teacher’s Sunday school lessons, I believe most of the conversation.

Anyway, as the new millennium approached the air of doom reached an all-time high. Mind you this was frenzy just in the hallways of our building, as many of these doomsday preppers had always had an some excuse to not be in class.

Then January 1, 2000 came without so much as a brown out, and you could smell the disappointment in the air the following Sunday.

It smelled like cracked wheat and gun oil.

Ever since then, the day after the failed apocalypse has become like my second Christmas, and I eagerly await the next one. Which by the way should be on September 28, 2020 if we are to believe George Madray’s predictions.