It Really Wasn't Much of An Apocalypse After All

There is a new show on the Discovery Channel called The Colony. The premise is that ten very randomly chosen "apocalypse survivors" are put into a wasteland and cameras follow them while they attempt to rebuild society using only things they can scavenge and their every day type ingenuity. As my mother, my sisters and assorted others would tell you, I love me the post-apocalyptic fiction. There's a quaint little book called The Stand by Stephen King, The Postman by David Brin (made into a movie wherein Kevin Costner got to wear a postman's hat, ride a galloping horse, fight mutants and single handedly rebuild the ENTIRE world) and also Swan Song by Robert McCammon a great book that nobody has ever heard of. (not that that should matter, no body has heard of this blog and yet I pretend I am rebuilding the ENTIRE world every time I sit down to write. Ok, not really the entire world, just maybe this desk, and this chair and maybe that small corner of the wall with the scratch on it)

But anyway, The Colony. A random selection of society, put into a wasteland. Yeeeaaahhh, not so much. I want to try an experiment. Go stand on a busy street corner in Any Town and close your eyes, wave your hands in the air and spin around three times. After you've done that and after the gathering crowd of people have stopped staring, pointing and laughing, randomly pick ten people. I'm willing to bet fifteen filet mignons and a harbor seal that The Colony did NOT use this particular random method. Their randomness netted them a Nurse, a Doctor, a General Contractor, a Computer Engineer, a Machinist, a Martial Arts Instructor, a Solar Tech Tech, an Aerospace Engineer and a Mechanical Engineer. Really? Cause if I concentrate reeeeaaly hard (which I can only do for about 10 seconds tops) I don't think I could some up with a group better suited for this. Except for maybe McGyver.

Where, you may ask (because I did, loudly at my T.V. and fortunately none of them answered me) is the office clerk, the Sparkletts delivery guy, the advertising executive, the manicurist, and where is the stay at home mom or the unemployed welfare recipient? Apparently statistically there are not enough of them to be picked out of a group of 100 people. Nope, in their universe solar tech techs (I just love saying that out loud) are much more plentiful then grocery checkers.

Ok, so we've established that their so called randomness is frightfully transparent to everyone but a blind, goat raising monk living on a remote mountain of Tibet. But the wasteland and scavenged items? That's got to be real right.?Well...........no.

They have a big, huge, actually gigantic warehouse to use, with the words SANCTUARY spray painted on the side in case the cameramen and producers failed to point them in the right direction. Helpful. Inside, of course there is no running water and no electricity, but oh my god - what's that! A pallet full of cell type batteries. Just lying there like they would be doing in any abandoned industrial warehouse. Hmmm, they say to themselves, what can we do with these since nothing runs on battery current around here. Wait, says the engineer "Look what I've found "abandoned" on this shelf over here, suspiciously close to these peculiarly abandoned batteries. An AC converter!" (He doesn't actually say that, he mostly picks it up over his head and runs around, shouting victoriously. Good lord people, its only been one day and already you've gone round the bend.)

Because in ALL post-apocalyptic true life scenarios you are going to have not only batteries, but an AC converter AND the one guy with the job experience who can figure out how to put it all together so they can run their electric shavers and can openers. Hooray!

Then there is the water, which they have to get from the L.A. River. This is almost too nasty for me to contemplate, since even mutant fish/crab hybrids with eight fins and claws growing out of their heads won't live in the L.A. River. But don't fear for our Random Ten, because not only do they have the one guy left in the world who can light up their lives, but they also have the one guy who knows how to make water clean by filtering it through stacked layers of sand and charcoal. And a twenty gallon plastic trash can. But I'm deflated by the thought that while its a great idea, where are they going to get that much sand and charcoal while holed up in an abandoned industrial warehouse. Oh, silly me, it was right there by the front door the whole time. Next to the wheelbarrow and the push cart. And the twenty gallon plastic trash can.

So when do these guys have to start living on their own? That's a great question. I'm waiting to see if next week someone cuts themselves shaving with their battery powered, AC converted electric razor and the doctor and the nurse (cause yes, you'll find lots and lots of doctors in a random selection of the general population) have to perform minor surgery. But where? Where in the industrial wasteland will they ever find someplace sterile enough perform surgery, some placed stocked with gloves, scalpels, sutures, clamps antibiotics, and the worlds ONLY battery powered, AC converted surgical light? Oh yeah, there it is, right behind that row of canned peaches "someone" left there.

Well one week down only ten more to go. If we're lucky they'll find the solar panels on the roof they can convert to run the big screen television in the basement. :)