A few months ago I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. The book’s premise is that a deadly flu sweeps the world, killing most of the population. The few people who survive must adapt to a new world without modern essentials like electricity, refrigeration, gasoline, antibiotics, computers, and so on. The book follows different characters as they react to a world they never expected to live in, and their stories intertwine in beautiful ways.

I find with a really good book like Station Eleven the scenes, characters, and ideas rattle around in my head long after I’ve finished it. I found myself thinking about what I would miss if I lived in the world of the book. Obviously I would miss my computer, my car, the Internet, modern medicine, etc. But what about the non-obvious, non-essential stuff of 21st century civilization? Here’s my list of unnecessary, trivial things that I would miss in  the event of a global flu-pocalypse:

• Brightly-colored drinks with fruit and decorations
• Cupcakes with icing
• Glitter glue pens
• Big glossy magazines with aspirational content, like Martha Stewart Living
• Swedish fish candy
• Home improvement television shows
• Moist towelettes
• Nail polish
• Coloring books
• Fancy needlepoint pillow kits
• Gifs of cats
• Gift wrap
• The Hamilton soundtrack
• My Dr. Who Pinterest board

What random things would you miss at the end of the world?

Photo Credit

Photo Fancy drinks by Sarah via flickr and licensed under CC 2.0