I’m thinking either Bic lighters or cigarettes, just to trade
clean water
This really is it. Sure, a high water ratio soup would provide both nourishment and fluids for living, but basic clean water allows for cleaning and the ability to grow food or trade for other stuff.
Plus truly unlimited means you can start your own river to help society recover!
We’re putting Gatorade on the crops and they don’t grow. Ground is broken!
But it’s got what plants crave!
If you are going that route: Rule of 3
3 minutes without oxygen. 3 days without water. 3 weeks without food (I think it is also “3 hours without shelter” but that is a much more environmental factor and feels shoehorned in). And, depending on the apocalypse, clean air can be hard to come by.
I’ve heard it phrased “3 hours without shelter in inclement weather”.
We can clean up the entire Capital Wasteland!
Aqua-pura for sale!
I was thinking Fallout 4 when I said it. The cans of pure water.
Came here to say just that.
What flavor of apocalypse matters a lot. If it’s zombies, ammo becomes critical. If it’s nuclear, ammo is less important and water filtration probably becomes critical. If it’s a gigantic asteroid that blots out the sun, water is easy to find but food is critical.
For an unknown apocalypse, I think I’ll go with gasoline. Not critical in and of itself, but helps a lot more generally with a lot of stuff, being able to power a generator and move camp more easily.
What if it’s like impact winter? Asteroid, forever blocked out sun, winter, and vampires.
Vampires…? Uh, garlic. lol
Enough gasoline could blow the asteroid up, preventing the whole thing. Forever blocked sun means no food but with gasoline you can power lamps for the plants. Burn gasoline to keep warm against the winter and burn vampires using gasoline. It is a christian invention after all /s
Gasoline doesn’t seem like a bad choice tbh. Also good for trading if, for example, water is scarce.
In the zombie variation, might want to cheat the system and ask for loaded guns. Because guns wear out and get jammed sometimes.
Smart move
If it’s a gigantic asteroid that blots out the sun, water is easy to find but food is critical.
Well, no, (liquid) water would be quite scarce :P
And still, only a small amount of water on Earth is actually drinkable.
Hugs from a nice person. The apocalypse is going to be really depressing I’ll need the love
thank you for being on this platform and being so positive. I enjoy seeing your posts and they somehow give me motivation to keep my chin up and be more outgoing with someone I recently met at the dog park who’s acting curiously shy and different from most people.
That’s a lovely thing to say Fiivemacs thanks so much
they have +86upvotes from me, so apparently I agree
Water; for living
Fresh, hot pizza from Ray’s.
Not fresh at the time of the apocalypse. Fresh at the time I seek it.
Of course that would mean I would also get a steady supply of clean water and of all the ingredients required to make the pizza. But that is simply a secondary side effect of having made my choice for the one, single thing.
I’m diabetic. I choose insulin.
Toilet paper. During apocalyptic scenarios, it’s worth is apparently uncountable, so I will be able to trade it and live a life of opulence.
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far to finally see the first item to disappear in every real apocalypse I’ve been through. Plus it’s man’s greatest invention. Just ahead of the Hubble space telescope.
Got that covered … I’m still going through my excess toilet paper supply I bought during the start of the 2020 pandemic. When people started clearing the shelves of toilet paper, we panicked and bought several whole cases of the stuff. It was completely insane.
I haven’t bought toilet paper in five years.
Just use water.
You expect the guy who bought cases of toilet paper to worry about wasting it?
Goats. Food, friends and defense.
And…
Transportation.
Yes of course, but also…
Recreation.
Antibiotics.
We all would die so quickly and horribly without them.
My meds. I don’t think I’ll be able to do shit without them.
Easy answers first. Potable water! You need it every day, helps with sanitation, growing food, etc.
If you wanted more like discrete consumable objects, keflex.
Edit: Or salt!
Ooh, salt is a good one!
Bottle caps.
Electricity would be tempting. If you have access to water, you can boil it to make it safe. Run a refrigerator to store food. A convenient source of heat for cooking. Stay warm in the winter, stay cool in the summer. Lights for when it’s dark. Use power tools to build things. Listen to music, watch movies, play those old Nintendo games.
Even after some time when your electronics break down and scavenging working ones gets tough, it’s not difficult to build things like simple resistive heaters. Making crude incandescent light bulbs wouldn’t be impossible either.
Electricity
How about “fully staffed, fully functional nuclear reactors”? All the staff could come in handy for rebuilding like everything
Army MREs, the modern ones.
Assuming I’m not teleported elsewhere, the place I live has plenty of drinkable fresh water and other supplies, so the only real concern is having consistent high-quality food available, and MREs are engineered to support people in the wild for several months, if not years. In case of a major war breaking out, so it would contain everything I would need to stay alive, or to trade to other people.
Fully-stocked cruise ships.
