Eva Bradley: My catastrophe plan is a disaster

I have always been a firm believer in Darwin's theory about survival of the fittest.
A world in which the weak and stupid are rapidly culled makes perfect sense. At least it always has up to the point I realised I wasn't necessarily in the half worth holding on to. The other night two depressing things happened in rapid succession.
Firstly, I actually agreed to participate in a 20-minute Colmar Brunton telephone research poll.
Once I got over the mild irritation of the call coming just at the moment the microwave pinged and announced my baked beans were ready, I realised rationally that it was probably the only one I would receive that night and ultimately, company was company, even if it was with a stranger in the name of market research.
The second downer came when the call ended and I realised that should a natural disaster occur, not only was I likely to perish, but I very much deserved to, such was my total lack of consideration for being prepared.
The survey was on behalf of the Government, trying to establish with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent just how many Kiwis actually gave a damn about preparing for a natural disaster and just how likely they would be to survive, should one prove imminent. For me, the short answer was: not at all likely.
After conceding during the early line of questioning that not only was a natural disaster likely, but that I "strongly disagreed" that emergency services would be able to assist me in any way should one happen and I would have to look after myself, I then went on to admit that despite this I had no survival plan of any sort and no immediate plans to create one.
The long silence at the end of the line as I admitted to each of my failings may have been so the interviewer could record my answers, but most probably they were simply so that he could shake his head with a disparaging mix of pity and dismay at encountering such profound stupidity.
Although his line of questioning had doubtless been prescribed by someone with far too many PhDs and was not remotely intended to wound my sinking self-respect, it was hard not to see it as being a little loaded.
Was I aware that Christchurch had recently been hit by a major earthquake with significant loss of life? Yes.
Did I know that New Zealand sat on a major earthquake belt? Yes.
Did I live on the coastline and was I aware that earthquakes could trigger devastating tsunamis?
Yes and Yes.
So did I have any kind of plan, a kit, had I gone to the gethru.govt.nz website, had I devoted even a moment of my life to considering how I might survive should the not-so-unlikely worst-case scenario ever happen?
No, no, no and no.
It was clear from yet another protracted silence that the interviewer was absolutely itching to veer off-piste and throw in a question of his own: just how dumb was I?
Given that we both knew the answer to that one, it hardly seemed worth his time asking.
I was briefly quizzed about my age, marital status, dependents and income. Although this was under the guise of ensuring a representative sample of respondents, I could instantly see the greater gain of gathering such information.
When the time came for heroes to haul out survivors from the wreckage there would be a blacklist of people such as me who, although contributing significantly to the tax take, were simply too stupid to remain in the great Kiwi gene pool. For the record, I was officially single, childless, stupid and ripe for elimination.
Eva Bradley is an award-winning columnist.