What do you think of when you hear the phrase, "the end of the world?"  A premillennialist horror fantasy of final tribulation, complete with planes crashing as born again pilots join the rapture of the true Christians?  The final heart death of the universe?  The smoke and fire of nuclear war, and endless winter afterwards? *

Or, like me, do you picture the supermarket void of bread and peanut butter? A flashlight with encrusted greenish batteries from 1985? Sure, it's unlikely that the world will go completely higgedly-piggedly  January 1, 2000 - but what if it does? We could argue, of course, that it's just an arbitrary day, that it's just one calendar of many, that the new millennium doesn't even truly start until 2001 - but I sure don't want to be arguing semantics when the neighbors run off with my last roll of toilet paper. It's capitalism that drove us to this potential self-fulfilling prophecy and, by God, it's capitalism that's going to save our little tails! Hence, here are some items that will help see you through the devastation  - and if things turn out o.k., well, you'll be all prepared to spend the first summer of the third millennium (or at least the summer of 2000) playing out your end time fantasies in the great outdoors.

....and I need some socks!

 *Catherine Keller, "Talk about the Weather:  The Greening of Eschatology," Ecofeminism and the Sacred, Carol J. Adams (Editor).