6 Reasons You're Picturing the Post-Apocalypse Wrong

Still, rather than greeting us with a hail of buckshot, their emissary politely pointed out that we were technically breaking and entering. We then had a nice, long conversation about Slab City, and were informed we'd be welcome to camp there if we paid the $55 entry fee, had RVs, and (this was heavily hinted) didn't mind the sounds of old people having sex at night.

We drove around for a bit and stopped to get directions from a shirtless man driving a golf cart, and were eventually guided to East Jesus. The name is either an obscure idiom for way out in the middle of nowhere, or it refers to the fact that they're located due east from a huge mountain covered in Jesus paraphernalia.

East Jesus ("Not a religion, do not worship" is their slogan) functions as the proof-of-concept for a functional post-apocalyptic society. There was ample electricity from the solar panels, a full kitchen, fans, beds and permanent buildings, all made out of trash and all surrounded with desert art (also made out of trash). There were a few cars parked out front (covered in trash) and of course, plenty of trash.

Turns out there's a reason for that beyond "I was high and the trash can was really far away." The people in Slab City learned quickly that ...

It turns out "mass vehicular murder" is somewhat less common than you'd expect. But people do respond to the lack of traffic cops and DMV regulations by making their cars a thousand times more awesome. Case in point: Our hosts captained a motorized pirate land-junk straight out of Burning Man. It didn't have seat belts, airbags, or most of the other stuff that makes a car, but we'd challenge you to find a more stylish way to sail the desert.

The main comfort lacking there is central air conditioning, which can be a genuine health hazard in the summers when the temperature spikes at 120 degrees Fahrenheit (that's why the permanent population is only around 200 apparently-fireproof people), but they've got all the solar power, Internet access, and dad-targets you need.

We stopped in the town of Niland, California, to procure propane and toilet paper before making our final approach on Slab City. Everyone had to poop, but Evans (mad with his moderate amount of power) gave the order not to do so at the last convenient indoor toilet before Bartertown, USA. This was another test: we knew there was no running water in the Slabs, and that meant a perfect chance to explore pooping in the post-apocalypse. We did not have high hopes. We thought our best case scenario was some sort of porta-potty/plague Tardis. Our worst would be a series of holes in the desert filled with rattlesnakes and human feces. We wound up with neither.

But we were wrong yet again: Not only did our hosts have hot showers, they had two indoor composting humanure toilets. The men's room had Playboys and pregnancy tests; the women's room had "a skeleton in a closet you can write your deepest, darkest secret on, and then read someone else's deepest, darkest secret." So one gender gets to read shameful material brought to them by the undead, and the other gets to play with a real skeleton!

This is why we don't let Swaim be in charge of things.

Except it didn't go down like we expected at all: one group of locals immediately invited us to live with them for the weekend. We dropped our stuff off in the half-buried bus/RV they let us sleep in, and it remained unmolested all weekend.

The only real warning we got was not to let J.F. Sargent remain passed out on a couch at night with his shoes on. "There's a 6.5-foot tall giant who gets up at around 5 a.m. every morning and wanders the camp. He lives by frat rules, so if he sees you've passed out with your shoes on, he will draw dicks on you." Apparently, face dicks are an ill-represented nuisance of the post-apocalypse. Though we guess there will be some problems with malnutrition, since Slabbers consider "6.5-foot tall" to be "giant."

At one point, we noticed a sign spray-painted across the front of one of the houses on the entrance to the city: " IS A THIEF."

We asked for some clarification on what happened when some unwritten rule was broken, and we were informed that community "law enforcement" was mostly a combination of shunning, shit-talking, and shoving matches in front of The Range. On rare occasions, they'd run people out of town -- but "asking you to leave" is about the extent of their vigilante justice.

Science backs it up: the more society crumbles around you, the more likely you are to want to help a brother out. A realistic version of Fallout 3 would be rife with Raiders running up to you all "Dude, are you all right? We saw you out there fighting scorpions and yelling about mutants. We're concerned you may have sunstroke. Please, come sit in our bombed-out hotel and recuperate with some nice lemonade."

The Loners on Wheels operate by a democratic-capitalist system: they elect a new "president" each year, and collect annual $55 donations from every member to fund their activities and infrastructure. While East Jesus just assigns each resident to a particular department best suited to his or her individual skills, from construction to electrical to setting stuff on fire, everybody staying there full time is expected to work one hour a day towards keeping the place maintained. One entire hour of work a day -- why don't you just issue everybody tiny running shorts and set down some cheese, if we're all going to re-enter the rat race.