“What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?” is one of the great date-night questions. It’s silly, it reveals a surprising amount about a person, and it’s a sneaky way into a conversation most couples never have: what would we actually do if something went badly wrong? Here are questions to ask your partner, starting with the fun ones and ending with the ones that might genuinely matter.
The fun ones
- What’s your weapon of choice in a zombie apocalypse, and why is it something completely impractical?
- If we were the last two people on Earth, what would our first date be?
- Which one of us would be the first to get bitten, and how would it happen?
- What’s our couple’s survival nickname?
- Which celebrity would you want in our survivor group, and which would you leave at the gas station?
- What luxury from the old world would you trade a week of food for?
- If you had to choose one apocalypse to survive (zombies, aliens, robots, plague or asteroid), which would you pick?
The revealing ones
- What’s the most important quality we’d need to survive together?
- Would you rather stay put and defend our home, or leave and start over somewhere safer?
- What role would each of us play in rebuilding society?
- Who would you go back for, no matter the risk?
- What one thing from our home would you save if we had five minutes to leave?
The ones that matter
Here’s where the game quietly becomes planning. These are the questions emergency managers wish every household had answered:
- If a disaster hits while we’re apart, where do we meet?
- Who is our out-of-town contact if local phone lines are jammed?
- Who picks up the kids, and who takes care of the pets?
- Do we each know where the important documents are, and the shutoffs for water and gas?
- What medications does each of us need, and how many days of them do we have?
If you can answer those five, you’ve done more emergency planning than most households ever do, and you did it over dinner. Our post on preparing for a disaster that hits during the workday covers the plan in more detail.
What’s your answer to question one? Settle it in the comments.