All a thinking dog needs is a Gmail account, which oozes daily amazement.
The latest thing to catch my eye is the chance to buy my very own bunker, to which I can retreat — as the blurb says — “when all hell breaks loose”.
This irresistible offer comes from Vivos, a clever American company that has found a number of underground hideaways built by nervous governments during the Cold War.
It describes them as “nuclear hardened … built to last hundreds of years and withstand the force of a 20-megaton nuclear blast within just a few miles”.
“Each Vivos shelter is engineered to withstand the worst-case catastrophes of both nature and mankind that many are predicting.”
In case any dumb dog (or curious eight-year-old) asks a stupid question — like, why would the nervous governments want to get rid of them if they were any good? — Vivo is ready with the answers.
After declaring that Vivos shelters could be “your only life assurance solution” and declaring itself to be “a modern day Noah’s Ark”, Vivo has a helpful section labelled “Prophecies”, which lists every End of Times prediction from Armageddon to Nostradamus. It includes killer asteroids and runaway comets, a mega tsunami and a sudden pole shift for good measure.
Then, getting right to the point, Vivos says “The truth is, we do not know what, when or where catastrophe will happen; but whether we want to believe it, or not, it likely will. It is only a matter of time.”
“Vivos is your solution to ride out and survive these potential catastrophes!”
By which time we are all paying attention and asking the price of having one of these bunkers, along with a year’s supply of everything you need.
The biggest Vivos shelter is Vivos Europa One, located “in the heart of Europe”, and now available for up to 800 people. There are private apartments and suites waiting for buyers.
Then there’s Vivos Indiana, which can accommodate 80 people at a bargain rate of US$35,000 ($55,000) per person.
Its newest “shelter solution” is Vivo Point, which has 575 fortified private bunkers located in south-west Dakota, for just US$55,000 each.
This is a little above my annual budget (“Not that much!” The Boss grumbles) and I am relieved to see that, for those who cannot afford to purchase space in a Vivos shelter, the consolation prize is the Vivos Global Genome Vault, which it says can store the DNA of every person on the planet “to preserve and store their genome for their own future medical restoration while they are alive — or to be a part of what may become the next Ark of Humanity”.
It’s so very kind of Vivos to be thinking of humanity this way. There is a lack of detail on accommodating all the animals, I noticed, so perhaps the ark idea hasn’t been thought through.
The Boss asked me what I thought Vivos would be doing to nurse the eager buyers of its bunkers through the predicted catastrophe. My hunch was that the Vivos wouldn’t be waiting around for that — its team would be sailing around tropical islands on a flash yacht, toasting Armageddon with fine champagne. Woof!