Spilling the Beans

          Grace had been preparing for the apocalypse her whole life. Years of clipping coupons and hoarding every non-perishable item she could find at Costco had resulted in a stockpile of food enough for several lifetimes. She could survive for a year on baked beans alone. So when the man on the news said that there was a nuclear bomb about to land fifty miles from her house, Grace couldn't have been happier.

She lumbered into the living room where her elderly mother sat in a wheelchair listening to classical music on the radio. “Ma!” She bellowed, “It's time!”

          Her mother gave her a sharp look as Grace grabbed her wheelchair and started to push her out into the kitchen. “Slow down,” she said, “It's not the end of the world.”

          “Yes it is,” Grace said gleefully as she bounced her mother down the steps into the basement.

          Grace was particularly proud of the fortifications she had built underground. The concrete walls were all at least three feet thick, and the walls surrounding the make-shift bedrooms were lined with sheets of lead. Every room contained a shotgun and an assortment of smaller handguns, along with a first aid kit full of antibiotics. Not knowing whether civilization's demise would come about by zombies, nuclear war, or a global epidemic, she had prepared for all possible scenarios.

          Grace parked her mother in the corner of the room. “Don't you go anywhere,” she said, and continued on into the depths of her lair. The centerpiece of her achievement was her pantry, although to call it such was stretching the definition. Shelves stretched seemingly for miles, filled with thousands of cans of every sort of food imaginable. Grace's neighbors had ridiculed her when they witnessed her carting the goods into her basement, but now she was the one who would be laughing when they begged for her to share. She walked down the aisles for a while, admiring her collection, until carefully selecting a can of tuna from one of the lower shelves.

          Returning to the main room of her fortress, Grace turned on a small television in the center of the room. She wheeled her mother over and settled herself down into the easy chair facing the screen. The news anchors were frantic, which Grace thought was very unprofessional. Apparently the bomb was only a few minutes away from hitting, and no one besides Grace had any idea what to do.

“This is why we should've bombed those Arabs ten years ago,” Grace's mother said, “The whole world is falling to pieces.”

          Grace opened her can of tuna and realized that she had forgotten a fork. She extracted herself from her chair and hurried back to the pantry. She didn't want to miss the frenzy on the television when the bomb finally landed.

          She was walking back down an aisle of canned vegetables when suddenly the room shook. This is it! Grace thought excitedly. She picked up her pace, and the shock came again, rattling a few cans off of their shelves. The towering shelf to Grace's left leaned precariously above her, but she didn't notice it until it was too late. Hundreds of cans of baked, black, and refried beans came down in a clamoring avalanche, crushing down on top of Grace and knocking over the other shelves like dominoes. This is going to be hell to clean up, she thought, right before a five pound can of pinto beans smashed into the top of her head, killing her instantly.