The label on the bag reads, “Kit for Facing the End of it All… The Worst Hasn’t Come Yet!“
______________________________
Now, concerned citizens have the opportunity to face the alleged “end of the world” fully prepared, using an apocalypse kit that went on sale in Tomsk in western Siberia. The kit contains a bottle of vodka, a packet of buckwheat kasha, a tin of fish, some candles and matches, a notepad and pencil, medication, including heart medicine, and soap on a rope, in an apparent concession to pessimists. It also contains an ID card that you must fill out by hand “in case your ID cards demagnetise” and an instruction card spelling out various games to alleviate apocalypse-related boredom. The kits… produced, somewhat illogically, by a local bridal party operator… are available in bright yellow and glamorous pink, costing a modest 890 Roubles (28 USD. 22 Euros. 19 UK Pounds) apiece.
On Monday, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported that more than 1,000 kits were already sold as of last week. The kit maker’s director, Yuliana Shchegolyova, told RIA-Novosti that the kits are popular corporate New Year gift packages, saying on Sunday, “We checked the internet, and the only nation to offer such kits was the Mexicans”. Shchegolyova added the kit was a joke, but according to the Sostav.ru website on Monday, that seemed to have gone over the heads of local officials, who announced plans to ban kit sales over the vodka and the medication, which require special permits to sell. An end-of-the-world craze is sweeping the former USSR. Last week, free Apocalypse survival courses opened in the Ukrainian city of Simferopol, and concerned Latvians unsuccessfully sought earlier to obtain insurance from the end of the world and the coming of Cthulhu. Reports stated that people across Russia steal necessities and try to weasel out of debts, citing the upcoming demise of the world as we know it.
Current eschatological expectations are based on a 5,000-year-long Maya calendar, which has 21 December 2012 as its final date {21 December is Stalin’s birthday! Puckish leftist friends have said, “Maybe, it’s the end of vulture capitalism”. Who knows? We’ll have to see, no?: editor}. People have offered various hypotheses about the exact means of the Apocalypse, although mainstream scientists reject all of them. The last end-of-the-world craze took place in 2011, when American “Christian” radio host Harold Camping predicted the “Rapture” on 21 October 2011. He was wrong.
26 November 2012
RIA-Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20121126/177749128.html
Editor’s Note:
It takes ALL kinds to make a world, including stark raving nutters. Tyotya Vara suggests that if you run into such, pick up the jug and take a healthy snort. If that doesn’t put a smile on your face, why, you can repeat the procedure. However, I don’t recommend that you do more than two applications of “Mother’s Little Helper”. I won’t be responsible for your hangover the next morning (although I do suggest that you eat a pickle and drink some pickle juice to drive away the friendly little gremlins if you do overindulge… we’ve all done it… Bozhe moi!… NOT one of my favourite feelings, no way!).
BMD
