House hunting for the apocalypse

So it’s no secret that I’m STILL in the middle of a move (omigod this move never ends). Mr. Char and I are in the middle of trying to buy a house, which is a fun process in and of itself (and not stressful AT ALL /sarcasm). Granted, we have the greatest realtor in the history of realtors, and I know this because she puts up with me and my Type A obsessiveness without threatening to a) fire me as a client or b) stab me in the eye with an unsharpened HB pencil. (It’s a well-known fact that I’m a dorky oddball; it’s also a well-known fact that I tend to annoy people without really trying.) (Her name is Crystal, she’s with Remax, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND her.)

However, the point of this post is not to wax poetic about my realtor, even though she is full of Teh Awesomesauce™. The point is, after looking at over a hundred houses and visiting around thirty, Mr. Char and I obviously know what we want in a house. There are certain things we look for (and our realtor will tell us which houses fit our style before we even go for showings, which is rather nice of her). Some of those things tend to be a good-size kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2+ bathrooms, attached garage…you know, that sort of thing.

Sadly, none of those things will help me come the apocalypse.

So then I got thinking: what features would I want in a house if I were looking for an apocalypse-ready dwelling? I mean, that huge master ensuite is nice, but it’s not gonna help me when the space pirates come a-knockin’.

After some thought, here’s what I came up with:

• Large underground bunker
• Secret underground tunnel leading to a large underground bunker, if you can’t or don’t want to put a bunker under your basement
• Food, water, and supply stash
• Storage room for said food, water, and supplies
• Weapons room with full weapons stash (But don’t forget to train in hand-to-hand combat. Or better yet, become a ninja)
• Training facility/shooting range (preferably with your own sensei)
• Clinic (if you can get a doctor there, so much the better)
• Mission Control/Shuttle Command Center (after all, NASA doesn’t need it anymore) with access to communications satellites and/or planetary defense platforms

Ah, hell, while we’re at it, these would be nice, too:

• A spaceship, so you can get the hell off the planet when it’s destroyed by marauding space pirates/evil alien dictators trying to take over the universe/an interstellar highway construction company
• Launchpad for your spaceship
• Klingon Bird-of-Prey escort (but good luck trying to hide a group of Klingons; you might want to stock up on gagh)

Hmm…if I’d given Crystal the above list, her head might actually have exploded. And that wouldn’t have been good at all.

But what if you can’t find a house with all these features (or can’t find a realtor who can find you a house with all these features)? Well, you can always buy an old underground missile silo and convert it like this guy did. Of course, this guy’s converting his silo for profit; I’m suggesting you convert it solely for your own use.

Which is what I would do, because I’m not at all keen on spending radioactive eternity with a bunch of people I don’t know. I’d totally live in a converted missile silo.

But only if it had its own spaceship. And Klingons.