With the Mayan apocalypse upon us, Rob Kutner, a writer for Conan and the author of the book Apocalypse How: Turn the End-Times into the Best of Times!, offers ten tips for survival come Dec. 21:

10. Chemical Warfare Begins Within

Are you currently thinking of injecting, inhaling or surgically implanting any foreign substances to enhance your bra size, batting average or just horrible workday? DO IT NOW. The more inorganic chemicals churning in your body, the more protection you'll have from whatever is going to get blasted into it.

9. Head for the Sex Shop

As has been well-documented (albeit mostly by the Australians) the most powerful leaders of any post-apocalyptic world will be those clad in leather bondage-gear. Get your Fifty Shades of Grey on today, run Bartertown tomorrow.

8. Extremer Home Remakeover

You know all those HGTV trolls drifting through houses cooing about how they “really bring the outside in?” For the apocalypse, you want the opposite. Seek out ways to prevent your dining space from becoming a “zombie-your-brain-eat-in-kitchen.” Stop thinking of it as “flow” and think of it as “large open space that's hard to defend against an army of suddenly-sentient Roombas.”

7. Relocation, Relocation, Relocation

My top recommendations for places to flee:

1. Antarctica — Pro: world's biggest subzero freezer; Con: repopulation made more difficult by new problem of male “shrinkage”

2. Top of K-2 — Pro: clean mountain air; Con: spend last days surrounded by Euro-backpackers

3. Next to Great Wall of China — Pro: total protection from Huns, Mongols, Taiwanese; Con: one of those bound to reinvent pogo stick

4. Atlantis – Pro: wise civilization shielded miles below land-dwellers; Con: may not exist

6. Shop While Everyone Else Drops

Did you know the Chinese have the same word for “massive, global-scale calamity” and “major shopportunity?” Imagine Black Friday where it's the sky that's black, and your fellow shoppers are slightly less bloodthirsty (because slowed down by being actually bloodied and thirsty). AND where there's finally a place to park!

5. Don't Starve – Snark!

Not big, strong, or fast enough to get to the really choice looting frenzies? Cut your rivals down to size with a few well-placed barbs about shoving all that food down their gullets.”A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!” “Yeah, slurp it down, Butterball.” “It's OK, you can start your diet The Day After.”

And speaking of food…

4. Make Yourself Unpalatable

No matter what apocalypse happens, it will likely lead to someone or something trying to eat you. But don't fret, RELAX — with a basin full of (let's just call it) water and whatever toxic household cleaning chemicals you have lying around, you can draw yourself a decadent bubble bath that will have would-be human-eaters running away screaming, “Soylent GROSS.”

3. Reinvent Yourself

A big blast will turn large swaths of the world into literally blank slate. The same is true for you. If you're trying to intimidate roving bands of feral punks, don't introduce yourself as “Bert the Mid-Level Drywall Sales Manager” — say you're “Ragnar the Insurmountable.” Better yet, growl it, or belch it — then pick your teeth with a spare human tibia.

2. Try to Look Busy

One of those tips that applies to both your current workplace and a post-apocalyptic hellscape (if there's a difference). Carry a bunch of rocks from one place to another. Light stuff on fire. Just think: the only key to rebuilding a civilization might lie in your meticulous “realphabetizing scheme.”

And if all else fails…

1. RUN!

Follow Rob Kutner on Twitter at @ApocalypseHow — BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

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