Necessities Poll

Once again I'm proud of our readers for making wise decisions in a zombie crisis. We all know that the most critical period for survival in the event of an outbreak is the first hour or two, while gaining your bearings and beginning to enact your survival plan. It was that period that our most recent poll tested.

A full 46% (393) of our readers chose weapons as the most important necessity to be secured for zombie survival. This seems to me to be the right answer. After all, what good is food if you can't even protect yourself long enough to eat it? What good is water if you get eaten before you can drink it? What good is group numbers if no one in that group is capable of defending themselves (or anyone else in the group for that matter) against zombies? Frankly I'm disappointed that only 46% chose this option.

Coming in second in the poll was water (20% - 170). This seems fairly reasonable to me since if we take threats in order of their immanence, water should be second. After death by zombie, you're most likely to die of thirst next. You'll certainly die of thirst long before starvation.

In third we had group numbers (17% - 142). To me this one could easily have been above water, so it makes sense that it was barely nudged out by water. After all, group numbers is really another tool (along with weapons) for surviving the most immanent threat to life - zombies.

In fourth place was transportation (10% - 85). This is an interesting one. If you find yourself in a city you're simply not going to survive if you stay there, no matter how many weapons you have. I'm sure for these 10% that is what tipped the scales. But how do you plan to get to that transportation in the first place if you don't have any weapons? Further, what if you don't live in the city? Why concern yourself with transportation above everything else?

The fifth most chosen answer was food at 6% (50). This just seems silly...absolutely silly. A person can survive more than a month with no food. Granted that time will be knocked down significantly under high stress survival situations, but the point still stands - food should not be considered a necessity in the early stages of zombie survival. Concentrate on living in the short term before you concentrate on surviving in the long term.

In last place, surprisingly, was night vision aids (1% - 7). To me this just seems utterly absurd! Why in God's name would anyone choose food over being able to see in the dark when a hoard of zombies is on the loose? In my opinion this could have come in as high as 2nd or 3rd and at the very worst 4th. Remember that we should prioritize necessities by order of the eminence of the threat that they protect against. If that is the case, then night vision should come before even water. A person can go a couple days without water (although, admittedly it will suck), but night falls for about a third of every day! When it's dark out and there are zombies around I assure you you'll be aggressively bartering your canteen for a pair of night vision goggles or a flashlight!

Well, there's my traditional assessment of the poll results. Feel free to rip me to shreds for my idiocy.