Fulfilling the Boy Scout Motto

My wife's cousin has a dead rabbit in her freezer.  She shot, quartered, and skinned it herself so during the zombie apocalypse she is clearly on the short list for my posse.  Of course she lives across the Delaware River which is perhaps a bridge too far if I need immediate assistance procuring food while the virally infected undead have my house surrounded.  Which is the exact reason I am thinking about purchasing a shotgun for myself.  A Mossberg 12 gauge with interchangeable barrel so I can use straight slugs if the lead pellets don't do the trick.  If you know anything about killing a zombie I don't need to explain the importance of a clean shot to the brain.

As far as survival gear goes I am quite well prepared.  I have in my immediate possession; gas, stoves, lanterns, rope, machetes, knives, flint and steel, an appetite for canned beans, water purification filters, and most importantly, an isolated cabin in the woods, on a dead end road leading into a dead end valley-as my neighbor was astute enough to point out.  Come zombies, Russians, al Qaeda, or a prophetic flesh eating virus and my valley will be the last place any one or thing will go looking.  But if trouble should come my way I want to be prepared.  After just a few years worth of weekends of rural cabin life and a federal government and national economy in total disarray I am morphing into a redneck survivalist.  According to my Woodland Valley neighbor and good friend across the street, I may not even be a liberal democrat anymore.  I don't know if it is my second amendment sympathies (kidding), or my love of canned beer and cigars (not kidding), but even after a half hour discussion whence I held the untenable positions of defending government regulatory controls, the Federal Reserve Bank, Medicare, Medicaid, global carbon offsets, and NAFTA, I had to beg off an invite to a local Tea Party rally.  I wasn't really invited to a Tea Party rally but it is true that I had trouble convincing my friend that my sympathies really do lie with the Occupy Wall Street crowd.  It proves the sociological axiom that we more easily tolerate differences in those we know and like.

But back to the Mossberg 12 gauge.  My quest to arm myself has also run into a few sociological roadblocks.  First and foremost Jews, apparently, do not hunt.  Or so says my other Woodland Valley neighbor a few houses, and a few political viewpoints, down the road.  And if Jews don't hunt why do I actually need a gun since everyone knows that during a zombie blitzkrieg I will most likely be one of  the first ones bitten and infected in spite of how well armed I may be.  A presupposition that, in light of my poor track record in the childhood elimination games of dodgeball, tag, and musical chairs, I cannot seriously argue against.  And as a progeny of the merchant class it may be true that I am better suited to procuring my beef downtown rather than in the woods.  The second, and definitely more insurmountable barrier, is my spouse.  The granddaughter of duck, deer, and pheasant hunting outdoorsmen, she never the less sees no reason to own a firearm in the modern era.  My wife does not subscribe to the delusional paranoiac fantasy that in the aftermath of a cataclysmic geological event, such as an asteroid crashing into Times Square, or Rick Perry becoming president of the United States, it will be every man and his wife for themselves. 

This is not the first time I had to convince my partner of the need for unusual preparatory readiness.  Back in December of 1999 she didn't understand why I had stockpiled rolls of duct tape, plastic sheathing and bottled water.  I didn't end up needing any of it but if my computer did crash at least we wouldn't have died of thirst.  Or drafty windows.  And then there was the blizzard of 2010.  We may not have needed sixteen loaves of bread and eight gallons of milk but the birds and neighborhood cats still come around when they are hungry.  And who doesn't love feeding evil feral cats and tic infested Canadian Geese?

Okay, so it's going to be an uphill battle to arm myself.  But at least I have the CDC on my side. No, they don't recommend a shotgun as part of the pandemic preparedness kit now, but if a Tea Party favorite wins the White House that will surely change.  Instead of looking to the CDC, FEMA, HHS, and EPA for help during the apocalypse it will be the NRA, and SOA, calling the shots.  Figuratively and literally.