Apocalypse! They say it's coming, what will you do?

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Who doesn’t love a good disaster movie? We eat it up from any source- books, movies, art, you name it. Sure, it’s morbid and a little twisted, but we love to think about how the world is going to come to a sudden, screeching halt. Why are we so sick?

First of all, let’s not be too hard on ourselves. I mean, it's not our fault that the "end of days" keeps coming up- we have a lot of experience dealing with the threat of an apocalypse. It's been shoved down our throats since...forever. Since the 80s alone, there have been more than two dozen predictions that our world would end (check out this massive list!) and yet, here we are still scratching our heads and searching for clues.

In case you didn’t know, we are coming up fast on another, December 21, 2012: The End of the Mayan Calendar —the day after my husband’s birthday. Better make this one count, Sweetie. The good news is it's unlikely to cause even a moment of inconvenience (at least that's what I hope.) But we're not out of the woods yet; there are many more predictions for the world to end in the future as well.

We are at our best and our worst when our lives are at stake. On any normal day, would we take in a stranger? Kill someone over a hill of beans? Pick up a hitchhiker? Probably not. But, throw a disaster in the mix, perhaps an epidemic, and we become so desperate for survival, companionship and power in numbers that something deep inside changes.

Whether we are faced with an asteroid (Deep Impact, Armageddon), global warming (TheDay After Tomorrow), solar flares (The Scorch Trials), disease (28 Days Later, The Stand), war (The Hunger Games), or zombies (Zombieland), we enjoy seeing how quickly humanity falls apart when the proverbial poo hits the fan.  But after the dust clears and the masses are dead, the few remaining band together, build alliances and unlikely friendships blossom. It’s really heartwarming stuff. Or so we hope...

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While we sit in our theater seats or relax in the comfort of our own home, we ask...am I the guy that gives up early just to avoid the stress? Perhaps I'm the undercover heroine that fights for life? Seeing it on screen is one thing. What if it happened for real? What would we do?