The 'definitive October' returns: canned food, bunkers and zero certainty

Another definitive October: canned food, bunkers and the same old question

What do you do when the end of the economic world has been announced for years as falling in the same month, and that month, punctually, leaves without bringing the end of the world? The prophecy of a total collapse in October is circulating once more, now a recurring meme and a fixture of every season. On one side are those who have long been taking the script seriously; on the other, those who laugh at it and point out that the 'definitive October' is that guest who always confirms and never shows up. In between, the only tangible certainty: Christmas nougat is already taking up shelf space in the supermarket.

What is the 'definitive October' and why it comes back every year

The label refers to a cyclical prediction: economic meltdown, the breakdown of the system and the ensuing chaos, all dated to October. It has been announced so many times that the date has lost any calendar value and gained a comic one. Working against it is nadapasismo, the stance of those who maintain that nothing relevant ever happens here no matter what gets announced.

Hence the discussion rarely moves on to the 'when'. It settles into mockery: if the cataclysm keeps postponing itself, what is the point of preparing? The most repeated irony is that the warning has been doing the rounds for so long that one can afford to be sceptical and, at the same time, keep adding cans to the trolley.

Cans, bunkers and the cost of preparing for something that never arrives

The prepper reflex has its domestic liturgy: stocking the pantry with canned food, setting aside supplies and having a plan in case supply chains break down. Half-jokingly, the argument goes that the problem is not scarcity but inventory: whoever stocked up long ago has already eaten through their stores waiting for a collapse that never came. Row hard and stockpile cans, as the same reflex goes.

The paradox is uncomfortable. Preparing costs money and space; not preparing leaves the warner with an empty pantry and the smile of someone who skipped the drill. Between the two extremes, most people settle for the joke and an imaginary bunker no one has ever had to open.

Political instability as the backdrop

The context is political and economic. It is claimed that the current institutional instability has no recent parallel, and it is blamed both on the Government's decisions and on an opposition which, in that reading, merely watches things go by. The worry shows in practical details: the antiestéticar that the paycheck might not arrive, and a sense of drift that some sum up as 'we're already a third-world country'.

In parallel, irony about the property market circulates. Some claim, half seriously and half in jest, that the next emergency decrees would be enough to deflate the housing bubble at a stroke, amid pressures of every kind. Nobody quite believes it, and that is part of the joke.

Meanwhile, the conversation drifts towards the everyday —which cartoon episode a given avatar recalls— as if discussing the end of the world and a children's show were the same task. The episode cited is titled 'No hay bolas' ('No marbles'). No need to explain the joke.

With the cans expiring on the shelf and the date coming round again, the only forecast that always comes true is the nougat one. The bunker, untouched, waits. And no one will be surprised that, once October's storm has passed, someone announces the definitive one all over again.