Emergency Preparation Van, You Are Harshing My Buzz

Walking around with Liz last week, we happened across this van. At first glance, I didn’t know what it was all about… and as I scanned the messaging running along the side of the vehicle, things turned from “pleasant walk” to “existential crisis” pretty quickly.

I’m a worry-wort by nature, and seeing things like this isn’t really doing me any favors. The ambiguous “It can happen” just comes off as an ominous foreshadowing, and kind of opened the door for just about anything my brain could think of. Earthquakes? Plague of locusts? Bioterrorism? Skrull invasion?

Looking at the image of the father with his daughter, my immediate thought was: heart attack, leaving your child an orphan.

Liz mentioned to me that there was a sign on the back, linking the van to the Department of Homeland Security. Going to the website listed (Gear Up, Get Ready), the organization says it’s: “Brought to you by the Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin Combined Statistical Area’s Regional Catastrophic Planning Team.” Now there’s a mouthful.

Good intentions and all, but man if seeing this didn’t just dampen my step ever so slightly. No one ever really likes being reminded of the inevitability of entropy.

Related:
Disturbing Reminders of Mortality, On the Way to Work
The Last Thing I Want to Think About
La Santisima Muerte
Some Kid Made Me All Existential and Shit