Your (post-apocalyptic) future in Luxembourg

If your housemates ask what the heck you’re doing with that one decent knife, just tell them that you’ll take care of them when the time comes. Also, from now on, you’d like to be referred to as Negan

Are you living a zombie apocalypse or just stuck in a rut? It’s difficult to know in some jobs.

I know, I know, you’re only here for two years, but are you really? I mean the weather is just so lovely, for that one day in May, why not stay until the world ends? I know I plan to. Here’s how to survive whatever the future throws at you in Luxembourg.

Zombie apocalypse

Stockpile foods with a long shelf life, things like canned tuna, chickpeas and kachkéis. If you don’t have space in your 10-room house share, maybe dig a hole in the park and bury it there. While you’re there, collect some sturdy tree branches that can be used to jab the zombies in the head thus killing them. Take these home and use the one sharp knife in your kitchen to sharpen them. If your housemates ask what the heck you’re doing with that one decent knife, just tell them that you’ll take care of them when the time comes. Also, from now on, you’d like to be referred to as Negan. This scenario may also see your overcrowded house share get a little less overcrowded. In any case, it’s a win!

Alien invasion

Since Luxembourgers have already gone through a number of invasions, you might want to seek advice from the closest Luxembourger to you. They’ll likely master the alien language overnight and during the day pay lip service to the ways of their new overlords. At night you can join them in the local bistro playing keelen (skittles) and plotting in Luxembourgish to take back the country. This will be very good for you as it will mean that you finally have an incentive to learn Luxembourgish. Unless the alien invaders are looking for cheap labour then, you’ll be recruited into a lifetime of servitude making cocktails out of battery acid and being surrogates for the aliens’ terrifying offspring!

Mass flooding

As they used to say in the Westerns, “head for the hills!”. Of course it’s worth being specific as there are quite a few hills in Luxembourg. Maybe treat yourself to an inflatable kayak or stand up paddle board from Decathlon and wait for the waters to reach your front door. Then start paddling towards the Ardennes (that’s the northern part). There are only good outcomes to this scenario: Luxembourg will finally have a coastline and accommodation is cheaper up north. 

Machines take over the country/the singularity

Well, it’s about time. We’ve done our bit, over you to you now, Mrs Petaflop! Of course, it could get scary if the little drone Petaflop kids start hunting us down like a feral band of local teenagers raised in Chavtown in the 1980s. You will certainly need to go offgrid to survive. Preferably somewhere with terrible network coverage so probably the casemates, or rue Aldringen, or my bedroom. You will need to learn to grow your own food, or go on a drastic diet. On the plus side, you no longer need to worry about your boss finding out that you use ChatGPT for work. 

A disease outbreak

For anyone who was living in Luxembourg during the Covid-19 pandemic, this is clearly the best scenario you could hope for: staying at home, watching Netflix and learning to cook jambalaya. Of course, just make sure that when it happens, you’re not single, you don’t have kids and you have plenty of toilet paper!