Desert Bunker: Do You Need a Desert Bunker?

Look for a shiny new Desert Bunker as a last resort. In the event of a world-ending phenomenon such as global tsunamis or Oprah retiring, a desert bunker provides safe secure housing for friends and family. Locating the bunker deep beneath a remote arid region, such as the Mohave Desert or The Mall of America, greatly increases the chances of survival should the world suddenly stop running.

Desert bunkers include very cool stuff such as:

• food,
  
• living quarters,
  
• cooking facilities,
• exercise rooms,
• machine shops, and
• little rooms to brush off the sand that always gets on your clothes when you hide in the desert.

Companies specializing in desert bunkers have sprung up in un-desert-like locales. Vivos, headquartered in Del Mar, California (an upscale beach town in San Diego County), offers luxury suites than can be buried to apocalypse-safe depths. They suggest that their abodes rival cruise ship luxury. Their flagship product boasts 13,000 square feet and includes a jail and a gym.

Vivos sells reservations in their luxury bunkers for about $50,000 each. The local Rancho Santa Fe in Del Mar offers rooms for $79 per day, corporate rate only. Unfortunately pets are not welcome.

Should the world start to end, the best place to hide might be underground. Why?

• Radiation exposure is generally lessened by layers of soil and sand.
• Weather fluctuations don't affect underground dwellings.
• Zombies can't hold shovels or drive backhoes.

Once underground, everything necessary for survival must be readily available. Try spending one day without cable TV... that really stunk, didn't it? If the world is destroyed, desert bunkers must include production facilities sufficient to meet the demand for The Simpsons and Wheel of Fortune. Reruns are acceptable for late-night insomnia, but civilization quickly breaks down under the strain of no new episodes.

Each desert bunker will have power-generation infrastructure. Blenders and flat screen televisions cannot operate without reliable electricity. Plan ahead: ensure that your population includes folks with muscular thighs who can generate current through pedaling. Lance Armstrong should be on the guest list.

Very few Ancient Sumerians reside in desert bunkers, but if they were still around they'd surely look into apocalypse-safe technologies. Debate rages over the fate of this little blue marble we call home vis-a-vis an impending collision with Planet X.

Planet X is also known as:

• The demon planet,
• Nibiru,
  
• Marduk,
• The Ottawa Object,
• Vulcan,
• Transpluto, or
• Rachel Maddow.

The truly scary part of the impending Planet X threat seems to be confusion over how the world population will know when it's coming. Any of these names could refer to a reality show on A&E.