Can we just stop talking about the millennium for a second? No, we cannot. I hate to tell you, but I think it’s just gonna get worse AFTER Y2K. Why? Because you don’t have to be a math geek to know that the first set of 10 numbers is one through 10, right? We don’t count zero, one, two … We count one, two, three … Brainless, toothless serfs in 1899 knew the 20th century didn’t begin until 1901. But we, in our ignorance, just want 2000 to be the big one. We can’t wait. We like the madness.

Granted, the publicity has been surprisingly low-key. One TV movie, a few funny commercials and TV shows making good use of the theme, but overall, millennium madness is taking a back seat to the Christmas shopping season. Lesson? Never underestimate the need of the American public to stick their heads in the sand and their asses in the mall. Charge it!

Having lived most of my life since being weaned off the teat as an unapologetic pessimist and most of my teenage years obsessively watching “The Road Warrior,” I cannot bring myself to believe that the world isn’t going to end horribly within my lifetime. A small part of me, the part with credit card debt, is even looking forward to it a little bit.

Let’s face it, my best shot at carving my own little empire out of the wasteland while driving at breakneck speeds and wearing football pads kind of depends on societal collapse. I’m not proud of this. I’m not proud of my undying love of cheese, but that doesn’t stop me from eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

As an appropriately ashamed former gaming geek, I have to admit I spent far too much time in high school wasting my miniscule writing talents on short stories about my buddies and me looking for gasoline in the desolate wastes of what used to be the Council Bluffs/Omaha metro area.

Of course, in my mind, the chicks would dig us for the very same reason that the scum of the earth would fear us: Our deadly quick killer reflexes, our cool modified dune buggies, our enormous supply of Van Camp’s Pork and Beans and our modified baseball bats with the nails in the tips.

We would travel around getting into adventures (killing scum and nailing horny post-apocalyptic babes), accumulating wealth (pork-laced beans, baseball bats and dune buggy parts) and trying to rebuild civilization in our own righteous images (think “X-Men”).

But after a time, one grows out of such juvenile fantasies. We cannot afford to live in the past attached to such whimsy. Unless we confront our very certain, very dull but realistic futures with maturity, we face the highly likely prospect of being left behind by those ready and willing to tackle their own fate.

Bear in mind that the world doesn’t have to end because of the Y2K bug. There are many good reasons for the world as we know it to fizzle fry. In John Wyndham’s “The Day of the Triffids,” the author shows us how the simple combination of oil-producing, walking plants with stingers and a love of rotten meat combined with a blinding comet could reduce mankind to little more than plant food.

A single calamity can be planned for, but two disasters occurring simultaneously could be the death of us all. Two days of blackouts with the consequent social upheaval of rioting combined with a few nuclear power plant melt downs or an outbreak of Hunta virus and we are back in the Stone Age, my friends.

Let’s face it, we think we are pretty advanced but most of us get squeamish at the thought of cutting our own meat let alone killing it. I don’t know anyone who could plant their own garden without a trip to Earl May and even that seems like a hell of a lot of work. Left in the dark for a week and the human race would be as doomed as a box of Snackwell’s at a Weight Watchers meeting.

So with that in mind, I would like to present a very realistic survival guide for the next millennium, just in case things do come screeching to a halt.

No amount of stocking up will last forever. Why waste time and resources now when everything could turn out just fine?

If you can, make friends with the kind of conspiracy-loving freaks who might already be prepared. Offer to clean their guns and pick up their water filters. Then, if the lights go out on New Year’s Eve, worm your way into their shelter and kill them.

Remember, no man-made laws will count after the apocalypse, so study your Darwin and get prepared to do anything. And remember: not having toilet paper will be the least of your concerns.

The only smart human is the one that survives, so get used to the tangy, sweet taste of human flesh because it will be the most readily available source of protein. If you have a moral problem with cannibalism, make friends with fat people. That way you only have to suffer the guilt of killing one person for the meat of three. It makes good sense, and the Frugal Gourmet would approve.

If you are fashion-conscious (and who isn’t?) attractive clothing can be made from surprising sources. Apocalypse or not, landfills will be with us forever, and thank God for it.

Garbage dumps are a great source of discarded materials to keep one warm. Plastic holds up better than bare skin in a fight, and garbage sacks are warm and have a slimming effect.

If you can’t find something to wear, bury yourself up to the neck in the filth and rot. Let the bacteria warm you with its exothermic decomposition.

Armageddon married in the morning? You bet! No need to wait until marriage, the day after will be a world without contraception begging for new life. Without state-sanctioning and official representatives of the lord hanging around, you will be as married as you say you are. Have fun with it, Cowboy! Knock those boots Charlton Heston style!

For empire-building, nothing beats a charismatic leader. If you don’t have the Jim Jones/David Koresh/Marshall Applewhite touch, buy Tony Robbins tapes and acquire it while there is still electricity. People will do anything you say if they believe you know god personally, but your cult-like following need not be religious. You can get a lot of mileage out of technocracy, too.

Above all, be prepared for anything. Don’t let surprise put you on the ash heap of history. Evolution means adapting quickly. Good luck!

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily. He’s never seen a man that could beat the snake before.