***In celebration of my friend Piper Bayard‘s new book, FIRELANDS, she’s holding a pretty epic contest for both bloggers and readers (seriously – the prizes will blow your chipmunk stripes off). Check out the details here (deadline: July 19, 2013). Bloggers can enter by publishing apocalypse-themed posts. So, ah, hopefully it goes without saying, but: This is my submission.***
I recently watched a movie starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, called Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. In the opening scene, a polished, upbeat radio DJ announces:
Once again, if you are just tuning in… The final mission to save mankind has failed. The 10 mile-wide asteroid known commonly as Matilda is set to collide with Earth in exactly 3 week’s time.
The black screen fades to a close-up of Carell (“Dodge”) and his wife in their car, staring straight ahead.
And we’ll be bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage of our countdown to the end of days, along with all of your classic rock favorites.
Cue: The Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
Best.
Opening.
Ever.
I want my last blog post to be like this movie. Dark. Funny. Romantic. Complete with a dog named Sorry.
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is disturbingly realistic in so many ways. No cell phones. Traffic jams. Looting. $8.50 for a bottle of window cleaner.
Total lawlessness.
It begs the question: How would the world spend its last days? Would there be time for reflection? Regret? Time for anything but? Would there be time for new connections? They say live every day like it’s your last, but when it’s everyone’s last? What then?
What would I say to you, dear Chipmunks, if it was all about to go up in flames?
Yeah, okay, so what? My last blog post and I’m petty ’til the end. Sue me. Go ‘head. Try to find a lawyer right before armageddon. It’s honesty that gets you through those pearly gates, Chipmunks. Remember that.
Bloggers: What would your last post look like? Bloggers/All: What would you do the day before the apocalypse?
~*~*~*~*~*~
FIRELANDS
Available from Amazon in Paperback and on Kindle
Also in e-book at Barnes & Noble and Kobo,
and at iTunes for iPad and mobile devices.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Go Jules Go 
Jules,
If this was your last blog post, it would be one where Le Clown would have been first to comment on. I win.
Le Clown
Le Clown,
As I prepare to meet my untimely demise, I concede: You win the internet.
-Stop Jules Stop
Jules,
Fuck you for making me laugh after a night of grumpy sleep because of a little girl with chickenpox. I don’t wan’t to laugh… I’m Grumpy McGrumpster.
Le Clown
Grumpy McG,
I just thought of something REALLY f’ed up. What if somehow this DOES wind up being my last blog post?
Hopefully Still Going Jules Go
P.S. – Hugs to your daughter (it’s okay, I’ve had chicken pox)!
My last post would be my last post because I can’t seem to write anything. Oh look, I just wrote something so maybe my last post would be this comment?
I’m honored. I might even share some of my window cleaner with you.
Wait . . . what (gulp) . . . what happens to all the lawyers? Why can’t you find any lawyers at the end? Do you know something I don’t know????
Did I mention that I’ve recently come to the decision to make a major career change? I’m thinking I’ll go with . . . project manager. That sounds like an entirely safe and reasonable job, right? Nobody was ever quoted as saying “kill all the project managers.”
Ha! I thought of you when I wrote that line, Ninja Snaps. And I was just clicking on your blog as you commented (ooooh)!!
No one ever wants to kill project managers. They just want you to pull time and money out of thin air. But 3 weeks before the apocalypse? Just go ahead and promise the world. “Under budget and ahead of schedule? YOU BETCHA!”
Misty, I love you, but the lawyers would be the first to go.
Kind of like they used to throw virgins into the volcano to appease the angry gods? It would be lawyers.
Ha! And GAH! This is the THIRD time I’ve been on someone’s blog as they’re commenting on mine! I hope this isn’t a sign of the apocalypse…
Third time this morning, I mean.
Man, you all have gotten quite violent and vindictive against us innocent and harmless little lawyers in these end of days. I thought you were supposed to kill the zombies . . . not the blood sucking vampires? 😉
It’s nothing personal, Misty, it’s just there are so many lawyers around to be volcano fodder, whereas virgins…
Umm . . . Should I mention that I’m a lawyer? A recovering lawyer, anyway. So Misty, I think you and I should be the ones to carry the ammo. 🙂
“recovering lawyer”? Are you on a 12-step program?
Step One: I admit that I am powerless over my compulsion to split hairs, and my life has become unmanageable. 🙂
My last blog post would probably be littered with profanity and an extra heaping dosage of the words vagina and butthole just because I think they’re both funny words to say. Vagina. Ha!
Then I’d apologize for all the profanity and people I’ve made fun of in prior posts so it’d end up being 32,594 words and nobody would read more than the fist few sentences before saying WTF is this crap and then going back to their reader.
Comment twinsies (I was just commenting on your blog at the same time)! Wait, what were you saying? I stopped reading after the the first sentence.
I’m not sure about my last blog post, but wow, that gal has got some interesting prizes going on in her comp there! I have a contest going on my blog at the moment to win a £10 (approx $15 US) Amazon voucher, which seems rather dull now! (Just dropping mention of that in casually).
As for what I would do on my last day, hmmm…maybe take up smoking again, I still kind of miss that, eat and drink lots of crap, and find something to do that will make me laugh a lot, with people who I want to laugh a lot with…don’t know what I’ll do if they have other plans for that day though…maybe just eating and drinking and smoking and laughing on my own.
That sounds like an AWESOME prize/contest!
There’s this hilarious scene in the movie where they have an ‘end of the world’ party, and one woman shows up in all the fancy jewelry/clothes she never wore, and someone else brings heroin, and Patton Oswald goes, “Bucket list!”
Oh yes, maybe I could do some drugs! I hadn’t thought of that, I’ve never done any drugs (apart from smoking a bit of pot in my teens!), so that would be a perfect opportunity!
Although if window cleaner is $8.50 US, I’d hate to see the going rate for H right before the big boom…
I’d better start saving…
Oh, man! You two are onto something. Just think how much money an enterprising entrepreneur could make if they start stockpiling H right now. *New Plan B if this writing thing doesn’t work out*
Only perhaps we’d, er…I mean they’d, better keep quiet about the fact that they’re doing that for now, you know, while there’s still laws n’ all.
I didn’t hear NOTHING! Carry on . . .
(See, why wouldn’t everyone want to keep ME around?). 😉
Ok, I vote we keep you then, you may be useful…
It’s okay. I’m in Colorado.
Definitely keep Misty. I don’t want to be the only lawyer left defending myself.
Are you also picturing us standing back to back while being circled by rebel looters and lawyer haters, slowly depleting our ammo as we try to survive the onslaught? Or is that just me?
No. I got that, too. *locks and loads*
If this were my last post I think I would be thinking…what a relief I won’t have to come up with a topic to post tomorrow. Oh and I would say Buh-bye.
Ha! That is an excellent way of looking at the bright side. “Thank zombie guts I don’t have to think of a post for tomorrow!”
On my last day and my last blog post, I’d run a contest — Win exclusive rights to my blog. Also, I’d probably be eating. A lot. Of bacon.
*gasp* DP! That’s GENIUS. I’d pick some outlandish prize that would seem like it juuuust might be realistic. “Win the last spot in my bomb shelter!”
What I want to know is who is interested in window cleaner in the last days? Do they want to make sure they have an extra-sparkly view of the asteroid right before it obliterates all life as we know it?
Ha! It’s actually a great part in the movie – symbolic. Have I mentioned how great this movie is? It’s just a really, really great movie. If it were the last movie I ever saw, I’d be okay with that.
I would post that my blog is going on a temporary hiatus. It’s the polite thing to do, since, judging by my spam comments, some of my blog readers are aliens who probably won’t be affected.
Or I just schedule a post or two for after the apocalypse.
First of all, THANKS! You are as shiny as if you’d been dipped in window cleaner and polished by a troop of chipmonks. What a great entry!
Second, you have the most fun, creative followers in the blogosphere.
Third, if this were my last post, I would announce the winners of the contest. Then I would post jokes, because anyone spending their last moments on the planet reading blogs instead of eating bacon with their families has got to be pretty sad and will need the laugh.
Thank YOU, Piper! I’m so excited to read Firelands. And you couldn’t be more right about my followers – every time I slog through a post, trying to come up with a new topic, I immediately realize it’s worth it because it’s SO MUCH FUN in the comments section after I hit ‘publish.’ I am a very lucky chipmunk.
Did somebody say bacon?
My last blog post would be the fabulous meal I made with ingredients looted from Whole Foods and all my favorite locally sourced restaurants. Then I’d tell everyone to go eat whatever the hell they want because it doesn’t matter anyway.
“…looted from Whole Foods.” HA. I’d head right for the prepared foods section, because ain’t nobody got time for that.
I think I’d write about all the simple things I’d miss AND make up for all the times I held off on profanity, e.g. “The fucking smell of fucking fresh-mown fucking grass.”
Aside: There’s a great Canadian film (no, that’s not an oxymoron) on this subject as well: Last Night (1998) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156729/. It’s surprisingly funny. Oh, and the cause of the end of the world is never explained.
Ha! You make an effing good point. I’d let ‘er rip, too.
Ooh, thanks; I’ll have to check it out, I mean, oot.
I posted one already, when the end of the world was supposed to end back in December! It was a list of reasons why anyone would look forward to the end of days! I guess it would have been my last if they had ended, but the days just kept on coming!
Great entry!
I was joking with Le Clown that it didn’t occur to me until AFTER I published this post that anything could happen, and this COULD actually be my last post.
Not that I’m asking for trouble, but, that would be kind of amazing…
Enough exclamation points much?????!!!!
Never.
I would definitely share my real name with people. And I would name the haters, one by one, and tell them, personally, to f**k off. And ‘f**k off’wouldn’t be missing a ‘uc.’ And I would post the pictures of my kids and I sporting moustache glasses that I took the other day as I thought of you Jules. But I certainly wouldn’t eat chocolate-covered bacon again because… well… it was super-yuck. (As I ate it, I wondered what was wrong with you Jules… buy only for the time while I was chewing it.)
I know, I know. I know we part ways on the bacon-chocolatey goodness, but hopefully we can come together with one last final F-U-C-K.
WOW. I just reread this and realized how it might be interpreted. …No regrets. No regrets.
I haven’t seen it yet – but just recorded it on the dvr… probably watch it tonight!
Regardless, I think there should be a sequel to this movie with me. I’m Steve Carell’s best friend, and Kiera Knightley falls in love with me. That’s pretty much the whole movie.
You think you’re smitten with Keira Knightley now, just wait’ll you see this movie!
I realllllly hope I haven’t built this up too much. No. No. I haven’t. Can’t wait to hear what you think.
I’m almost certain it would be a bitter post about socks or something else that grates on my nerves.
Would I really be the only person to make a last ditch effort to seduce Ryan Gosling with my masterful prose? Really?! Well good, I wanted him all to myself anyway.
My last blog post would probably the sordid details of all the things I ate because I want the aliens who discover my blog in 1000 years to be impressed by my consumption of Red Velvet Cheesecake ice cream.
In reality, I’d probably just want to be with family and friends and laugh about all the stupid crap we did.
But before the world ends, I need mustache glasses.
My last blog post would be a letter to anyone with inside information on Dexter, to please contact me to let me know how the series was supposed to end. I have a bet on the ending that I would like to win before my demise. While writing my post, I would be alternating between smoking and eating all the carbs I have been living my life trying to avoid. After posting, I would go say good-bye to my family and friends, and then return home to continue smoking, and eating, and having sex with my husband. Hopefully somewhere in there someone will have gotten back to me on that Dexter ending.
Hahaha – I just watched this last week also – agreed: best. opening. ever. If I had to write my last post, I would probably spend my time not writing so I could read what Donofalltrades, you and LeClown wrote. And then I would be pissed off that I never got to meet y’all, and spend my last hours clamoring about how that makes the end of the world extra stupid. Congratulations to your friend! Going to check her out now.