We’re told by inspirational posters and feel-good half-hour television almost
every day that we should “live each day like it’s your last”, but most men knows
that nonsense only floats the boats of trust-fund kids and the unemployed. Even
so, there comes a time in everyone’s life when a man has to throw caution to the
wind and crank up the heat a little more than would be otherwise safe and an great
opportunity for just such a night is fast approaching.
For better than five years we’ve been privy to a kind of slow boil hysteria over
this Mayan thing. We can’t tell whether it’s going to be the second coming of
Christ, a solar flare disaster, or maybe the polar bears learn how to operate assault
weapons, but the drums have been beating at a good clip for longer than we care
to remember, and it’s time we did our part to make this the last bout of end-of-the-
world hysteria we have to endure.
Just to be clear, Swagger puts about as much stock in the Mayan calendar as we do in
Soviet-era block engines, but that said, the fake end of the world is as good a reason
as any to “seize the day” and get a good party started.
We feel it’s our responsibility, as a Men’s Magazine of the first order, to prepare
for the fake emergency by advising our readers to take one or all of the following
precautions. Does that make us heroes? Maybe, but your preparedness is all the
thanks we’ll ever need! Let your actions on the 21st be your middle finger raised
to the fear-mongers and fatalists among us, those who think we’re so fragile, so
unredeemable, so doomed as to play cheerleader for even the faintest sign of
apocalypse. Live with Swagger, and damn the torpedoes, imagined or otherwise.
#5. Get Nice and Toasted
Never let it be said that you met Armageddon with a clear and sober mind. Get
yourself a bottle, a few like-minded friends, and set phasers to “stun”. Make sure
your night includes a drunken tumble down the main drag, telling everyone who’ll
listen to “repent” while there’s still time. Take solace knowing that when the
tsunami hits, your last moment on earth will be singing the wrong words to “My
Way”
#4. Hang Gliding…
…Or bungee jumping, sky-diving, spelunking or any other enterprise that would
seem ridiculous to do in everyday life. It’s time to chase that high all those extreme
sports guys always harping on about. Do something dangerous and feel the wind in
your hair, and when/if you land, you’ll have a new understanding of what is actually
dangerous in life and what isn’t.
#3. Write a letter.
Seriously, grab a pen, a comfy chair, a quart of whatever liquor makes you most
philosophical, and time yourself to have the letter in the post a few minutes before
the big one is supposed to hit. Maybe it’s a lost art, but that makes it all the more
notable. You can write a woman you never got around to bedding, a friend you’ve
had something to tell for a while, your old man, God, anybody, just make it good,
honest and from the gut. Leave something amazing for the archeologists to sift
through years from now.
#2. Be Abroad
Should the apocalypse get started, you’d do well to set up shop in a new town with
the cleanest of clean slates. Imagine hiding from the zombie hoards in Venice, or
clinging to the pyramids while floating on melted ice caps, or rebooting society from
the shores of Tahiti. You won’t miss the world, with all its indoor plumbing and
credit ratings, nearly so much when you’re looting a Walmart in an exotic local.
#1. Sex
Do you want the last seconds of your life be huddled in abject fear on some kind
of carpet, or in the throws of romp hot enough heat up the nuclear winter. It’s
your license, day, duty to get creative, because if they’re going to find your charred
remains locked in coitus, you don’t want it to be missionary position do you?
Written by Jeremy P Beal