Stacie Ponder's horror columns appear weekly in Monsterfest.

As an avid viewer of The Jetsons and Looney Tunes as a child, I was always excited about the things to come, like the "house of the future" where food would come in pill form and furniture could fold up and fit your pocket. Though I'm older now (not by a lot, however, thank you very much), I still get all my ideas about our lives to come from media. As a big horror and scifi junkie, I've seen many a dystopian future flick; they've vastly informed my world view and I gotta tell you -- we may be headed for an apocalypse, but it won't be all bad, I promise.

Did I scare you with all that talk about the "apocalypse"? Sorry, but you need to face up to it. Movies have taught me it's definitely going to happen -- though exactly what kind of apocalypse we'll face is unclear as of yet. Will it be a virus that wipes out most of mankind, turning some into any variety of bad guys, forcing the remaining normal folk to fight for their very survival? According to movies such as Doomsday and I Am Legend... well, let's just say you might want to stock up on gas masks, duct tape, and garbage bags now.

The Coming Robot Apocalypse
If it's not some sort of pandemic that sends us all straight into Hell, then there's a good chance we'll all fall victim to (cue ominous music)... the robots. The Jetsons may have taught me that robots will be sassy and will clean my house, but The Terminator and Battlestar Galactica proved that robots hate me and will want to kill me. Who knows? Even Rosie the Robot will tire of her duties someday and want to rise up and kill me -- the robot apocalypse is inevitable.

That is unless, of course, we humans beat them to it by polluting the planet and letting big corporations take over completely as in Wall*E, or if a major oil shortage brings on the end of days as society collapses, like in Mad Max. But you know, those scenarios are so left field that I don't think we need to worry about them... a robot apocalypse seems much more likely.

Never fear, dear reader. Thanks to movies, we know what the post-apocalyptic future will be like; as knowing is at least half the battle, we can all face our new lives preparedly.

Post-apocalyptic Career Choices
For example, you might be thinking, "Will I still have a job after the apocalypse?", a viable question. Money as we know it may be obsolete after the bomb drops (or what have you, but it's still a good idea to learn a trade that will make you useful and will earn you items and favor from all of your fellow survivors. Don't worry -- I'm not going to suggest that you become a doctor -- rather, I suggest you look into the arcane arts of tattooing, hair styling, and makeup application. After civilization is toast, people are going to need mohawks and facial tattoos! Don't tell me you've learned nothing from Doomsday! As it relates, I also suggest investing now in Manic Panic hair dye.

If you want to be creative but hair and makeup aren't quite your thing, consider a career in fashion design. Really, no one wants to wear the same old boring jeans and T shirt -- the key word, my friends, is leather -- and lots of it. Leather pants, leather jackets, boots, harnesses, thongs, you name it... so long as it's leathery and covered in buckles, it'll be a huge hit on the dystopian runway. Leather is the perfect material to don as you make your way across a scorched flatland under a relentless sun in search of a drop of gasoline -- just ask Mad Max. Or if you don't care to wear leather yourself, then you simply must get some for your gimp-sidekick. (Everyone in the future has a gimp-sidekick. Duh.)

As all cars of the dystopian future are pimped, it seems that welding would also be a useful occupation. Whether you're applying large metal plates of armor over a Dodge Dart or adding chandeliers to the grille for that touch of class, your skills will be in high demand. (please: The Duke didn't trick out that Cadillac himself in Escape From New York). Add some nitro charges so that Dart can outrun a Ferrari! Paint it black, put spikes on the front, and maybe a missile launcher somewhere. No matter what you do when transforming that car into a Battletruck, however, do not put in bulletproof glass. Nobody thinks to do that, ever, and you don't want to seem different from all the other apocalyptic body shop workers.

If all this manual labor has got you down, why not give business management a try? Open up your own arena -- a Thunderdome, if you will. As we've seen in films such as Clash of the Warlords, World Gone Wild, and pretty much every movie I've mentioned so far, entertainment in the dystopian future will be derived from watching people beat on each other. Make sure your Apocadome has one big throne for the punk leader to sit in and watch the proceedings with disdain (the crowds can stand as they cheer), and get yourself a team of giant-sized weirdo gladiator-types wielding sharp and/or blunt instruments who will do battle against unarmed, scrappy underdogs. Despite the fact that the odds are heavily in their favor, your weirdos are always going to lose, so ensure that you have a full, rich roster of talent.

As you can see, our future is a bit of a "six of one, half a dozen of the other" kind of deal. Sure, your loved ones will be wiped out by a virus, or a group of sexy robots, but your career as a mohawk specialist will flourish. You'll be forced to eat dirt in order to survive, but you'll have your own gimp to go out and scavenge for said dirt. And your junker might be boring to drive now, but after the mushroom clouds dissipate, it'll be tricked out all sweet-like. Thanks, Hollywood -- you've got me all excited for the end of the world!

A fan of horror movies and scary stuff, Stacie Ponder started her blog Final Girl so she'd have a platform from which she could tell everyone that, say, Friday the 13th, Part 2 rules. She leads a glamorous life, walking on the razor's edge of danger and intrigue.