For those too young to remember, the genesis of bomb shelters can be traced to the 1800s, long before the Red Scare and so-called wholesomeness of the 1950s made them a natural part of many Americans’ backyard landscape. When people disappointedly realized that nuclear destruction wasn’t ever going to come, they landscaped over these glorified hovels, chock full of so many canned good delicacies.

With a heavy heart, too, were these shelters concealed. People are always not so secretly praying for the end of the world to come. It would make it so much easier than being blindsided by death and/or, more likely, the constantly swallowed bitter pill of miscalculation. But thankfully, catastrophe has proven cyclical as the resurgence of the bomb shelter has cropped up once again in the wake of a political war that has stretched to a global scale. Sold by major retailers like Amazon, Target and, of course, Wal-Mart, bomb shelters are now both more elaborate and more affordable than ever for those seeking refuge from an inevitable apocalypse brought on by the clashing, grating explosions of ideology.

Even someone as generally undaunted as Barrett Benzetti, a 34-year-old Long Island resident, has decided to outfit his recently purchased home with a state-of-the-art shelter. When asked what made him take the plunge, he shrugged, “You gotta be prepared for whatever this crazy world brings.” As a small business owner in Garden City (a sort of Hudson on a grander scale), Benzetti spends many of his hours at work, ensuring that the inventory at his hardware store is always up to par and overseeing the often stoned employees. “I haven’t got much time for a girl,” he admits. But he wants to find one to join him in that underground paradise he’s perfected.

“Ya know, just a good lookin’ lady who knows how to work with evaporated milk,” he adds. Benzetti isn’t the only one who’s on the hunt for a compatriot to join him in a new subterranean world. All over the country, a Noah’s Ark trend is occurring, with those without a match to accompany them scrambling to find whoever they can to spend the foreseeable future in the dark with, you know, in order to stay out of the darkness happening here aboveground.

That’s how Shelley Turcett, a 28-year-old who happened to be passing by Benzetti’s hardware store on her way to the hairdresser, came to be so amenable to Benzetti’s charms. “Ordinarily, he wouldn’t really be my type. I prefer blonde-haired men, believe it or not. And someone a bit more muscular. But I guess Barrett will do. He has his own separate set of appeal from my usual type. Mainly, I suppose, that he’s available and he mentioned that bomb shelter he has. I’m not trying to stick around up here for much longer and I haven’t been able to talk my parents into buying one. So coupling it is.”

Benzetti expressed a similar level of enthusiasm, remarking, “She isn’t the big-titted woman I always saw myself ending up with, but I know we’re not going to be down there forever. At least, I hope not…”

As Benzetti and Turcett spend the next month and a half getting to know one another before January comes, and with it, the dawning of a new era, they’re trying their best to find some common ground in order to tolerate only ever seeing one another’s faces, day in and day out.

“I’ll admit, she talks a lot. But all women do, so I can’t begrudge her that. I may need to order more earplugs though. In case she finds out I’m wearing them and takes them away from me,” said Benzetti.

Turcett had other concerns of a more sexual variety, lamenting, “I was hopin’ that if I was gonna spend all my hours with a man, he’d at least be a little more attentive, in the bed, that is. Barry, though, I gotta guide his head down there every time–and even then, it’s like pulling teeth. I’m startin’ to feel like he thinks my vagina has teeth actually.”

Though they’re differences are overt and sweeping, they are, at least, both “liberals” from Long Island, one of the most important uniting factors there can be.

“Let me put it this way, love comes quickly when it feels like the end of the world is,” concluded Benzetti as he copied a key to the bomb shelter for Turcett. “She’s gonna decorate it today.”