The Prudent Preparation pamphlet

You receive a 42-page pamphlet in the mail and you're frightened. The pamphlet's title is "Prudent Preparation: What Can I Do in the Event of a Mass Casualty Incident?" It has the look of an owners' manual from a kitchen appliance, and this design seems intentional: toaster stops working, check the manual; smallpox pandemic, check the manual. Open "Prudent Preparation" to a random page and read aloud: "Pneumonic plague is transmitted when the bacteria infects the lungs. It can be spread from person to person through respiratory droplets released by coughing and sneezing. Transmission can occur with face-to-face contact." So cut down on the face-to-face contact, sport.

The National Strategy Forum, which prepared the pamphlet, is talking to you. The forum means well. It's a not-for-profit based in Chicago, a collection of academics, retirees and business executives interested in foreign affairs, and they want to help the masses react properly should a terrorist attack occur. But the forum is scaring you. In "Catastrophic Terrorism and Civil Liberties," the pamphlet asks its reader to "consider, for example, a terrorist attack involving weaponized germs at a hockey game or opera." But no, you don't really want to do that. (Chicago Blackhawk fans will note that if terrorists strike them during a home game, the event would not be televised locally.) If you view every random diversion in terms of safety and escapability things get bleak. The pamphlet intends to assess risk and propose responses, but it petrifies you with seven pages of bullet points that follow the heading "Preparation."

Just a week ago, preparedness looked like this:

* Plastic sheeting
* Water
* Duct tape

The forum creates frightening realities for each form the enemy's attack could take. Chemical or biological: some rogue in an airport with a turkey-baster full of pathogen. Sniff, hack, gag, virulent disease. If you're lucky, you'll live among the mole-people surviving on Pop-Tarts in the subway.

Nuclear or radiological: the sun's heat stuffed in the trunk of a car, then released. Ka-blooie. Thermal wind, red sky, generations of babies with flippers and twelve toes. Think you're ready, Citizen? Will you survive the tyranny of germs or conflagration? No, you're screwed.

Unless you have $51,980.35. This figure isn't in the pamphlet, actually. It comes from fear-induced Web shopping, inspired by the pamphlet's accidental hopelessness: "Small children, especially infants, have higher metabolic rates, breathe relatively more air per minute for their body weight, and have a larger relative skin surface for weight. These factors translate into increased susceptibility ..."

You can't process all of the forum's contingencies, but you can shop your way through any crisis. You'll need packets of food, impenetrable clothing, breathing aids and some sort of hermetic shelter. In the end, it will cost approximately $51,980.35 (plus incidentals like shipping, insurance, installation of your bomb shelter, etc.) Here's where the life-saving money goes:

SurviveAmerica.com: $1050.40 This site is a one-stop shop for the completely terrified. Headquartered in a remote town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Survive America offers a broad selection of survivalist provisions and military-grade devices. They are not alone in the burgeoning withstand-the-apocalypse industry (see Equipped.com, SurvivalInstinct.com, CitizenSafe.com, SurviveAll.com, and Survival-Center.com), but their site enables rapid gathering of essentials.

It's also a good place to answer the critical question, "What will I wear?" Assuming that you're protecting a standard four person Dad-Mom-Boy-Girl USA household (fuck the dog — Shasta gets vaporized, this is war), you'll need things like the Baby Protector Gas Mask ($299), the Child Protector Gas Mask ($279), a pair of SGE 1000 Tecnopro Gas Masks ($318) and a couple of Military Tyvek F Protective Suits ($118, "Nuke boots and gloves included.")

These are stylish and retro in a Day the Earth Stood Still kind of way. You'll feel conspicuous, perhaps, but not embarrassed. Plenty of airtight multiserving tubs of foodstuff at Survive America, too: American Cheese Powder ($10.17), Cracked Wheat Cereal ($5.73), Large Lima Beans ($8.03), Dehydrated Onion Slices ($7.63). Did someone say "Beef Stroganoff"? Yes, please ($4.84).

Radius-Defense.com: $50,750 If you don't have a badass bomb shelter in the back yard, you might as well wrap yourself in duct tape and start singin' Christmas carols, 'cause you got nuthin'. Survival means going underground, just like Hollywood always said. New Hampshire shelter maker Radius Engineering Inc. offers the Cadillac of shelters: the P6 Disaster Shelter — Military Model. Radius promises "a totally self-contained 20-150 psi ribbed paraboloid (egg-shaped) underground disaster shelter designed to protect 6 adults for long periods."

The P6 provides radiation shielding, intruder security, HEPA filtered ventilation, electricity and all the wonders of plumbing. You're home. If you're concerned about the price tag, think of the P6 as a summer home.

Without windows. In the ground.

Falwell.com: $179.95 You can't really put a price on eternal salvation. But if Reverend Falwell had to, it would be something like... oh... $179.95. "The March To Armageddon Video Course on Biblical Prophecy" has some unsettling cover art: A soldier in gas mask and combat fatigues stands in the foreground as a mushroom cloud glows in the distance. However, the product description assures you that these videos "will help you realize that God has EVERYTHING under control!"

At least someone does.

This video collection won't provide immediate assistance during a mass-destruction event, but it will take the edge off once you're in the bunker. The item's brief description does not specify how many VHS tapes are in the "video course," but Steve, the Falwell.com webmaster, suggests that it is "at least four or five." (Here's a challenging writing exercise: Compose an e-mail to Falwell Ministries in which you convince them that you are not a cynical liberal, in fact, but a scared-shitless believer with a legit product question. Not so easy. Turns out they receive a lot of derision and condescension via e-mail, and they don't respond.)

So cheer up, Ted. Just ride out the danger in your subterranean egg. If you can't do that because you're an average member of the citizenry who, despite the generous tax breaks, can't scratch together $51,980.35, forget the Armageddonish pamphlet in the mailbox.

Forget all the excited WWIII news features and the profiteering of rat-faced evangelists and survivalists. Go out. Do whatever you did before you wasted a day thinking about how, and if, you could buy enough stuff to protect yourself. Because you can't. Breathe some above-ground air, enjoy a hockey game and take in an opera.

— Andy Behrens (abehrens53@hotmail.com)