Doug Clark: Bring on the Mayan apocalypse; I’ll be rocking

Today we’ll examine the importance of the “bug-out bag” and how much Spam you’ll need to cram into it in order to survive the coming collapse of civilization as we know it.

Before getting to that, however, I feel I owe an apology to any dead Mayans who may have been offended when I scoffed at their predictions that the world will end shortly before Christmas to avoid the rush.

All that 2012 doomsday hocus-pocus seemed silly when I wrote about it last spring.

Enough troubling events have happened since then to make me think that those long-gone Mayans maybe knew something.

It’s been one sign of the apocalypse after another this summer.

And that’s just the cop scandals.

The other disasters are even worse, such as …

• The Middle East boiling over like soup left on a hot stove.

• Iran about to give Israel a nuclear makeover.

• The entire U.S. economy in the crapper.

• Except for Spokane Mayor David Condon, who happily received a $69,000 raise.

My hair would be standing up, if I had any.

And if I haven’t frightened you enough, did you catch the alarming weather story on Friday’s front page?

Noted global warming experts predict that some sort of Ice Age is heading our way this winter.

I know. I don’t understand it, either. But it scares the hell out of me nonetheless.

When you add everything up, you can see why everyone should have a bug-out bag.

To be honest, I’d never heard about bug-out bags until I stumbled on this intriguing reality TV show called “Doomsday Preppers.”

The cable series is about ordinary Americans who are just like you and me except for filling their basements with enough food to stock a supermarket and burying boxcar-size bunkers full of assault rifles in their backyards.

One episode featured an Ohio furniture repairman named Jason who made his screaming 5-year-old son participate in timed gas mask drills.

“If my kids don’t know how to survive they’re gonna drag us down,” noted Jason.

Real Father of the Year material.

The one thing these preppers have in common – besides a serious need for Prozac, that is – is a bug-out bag.

This can be a backpack or a bowling-ball bag sans ball. Whatever. The point is to fill your bag with enough essentials to keep you going for at least three full days.

Once your bag is packed, you need to keep it handy until calamity strikes. Then it’s time to grab it and “bug out.”

A few of you probably don’t have access to underground steel-reinforced concrete bomb shelters.

The next best thing is to head for the hills and make camp where the public rarely goes.

You know, a desolate place like the racetrack those idiot county commissioners bought out in Airway Heights.

So with survival in mind, I found a black canvas duffel bag and began assembling all my “must-have” items in my own Doug-out bag.

The Traveler guitar I take on airplanes. (Check.)

A case of guitar strings. (Check.)

Some picks and a tuner. (Check. Check.)

My Roland battery-powered guitar amplifier. (Check.)

Microphone. (Check.)

Then I ran out of room.

I don’t think I’d make it on “Doomsday Preppers.” But I’m okay with that.

See, we all have our own definitions of survival.

And as far as I’m concerned, who wants to live in a world without twang and tunes? Not this cat.

So when The End comes, here’s where I’ll be:

On my leather couch, strumming “Kumbaya” and waiting for the Mayans to join in.