Weekly Short Story: Foster, You're Dead by Philip K. Dick

Renowned twentieth century science fiction writer Philip K. Dick wrote his scathing short story Foster, You're Dead back in 1955, in the midst of the Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. when bomb shelters were in great vogue and nuclear war seemed inevitable, even to the point where it became a marketing tool.  The story jumps ahead in time to 1972 when our society has structured itself around that notion of inevitability, with companies producing new shelters for consumption...each "new and improved" model rendering the previous one obsolete.  Little Mike Foster is isolated in his own school as all of his classmates' parents are into buying bomb shelters and contributing to civil defense.  His own father, though, sees it all as a shameless sham to squeeze the people by seizing on their fears...he doesn't have a shelter nor does he participate in the almost constant war preparations.  Mike knows there is a public shelter, but even it costs money...fifty cents...and he is penniless.  As anxiety builds up within him, the continual pressure from elders and advertising only exacerbates the problem.  Will Mike's father relent and join the herd of consumerism-driven sheep?  Well, you can read Foster, You're Dead to find out...it's part of a collection titled Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (Pantheon Books, 2002).  I've also searched for it online...there seems to be a dispute as to whether it is public domain or not: I'm going to err on the side of caution and not put a link to it, although you're free to make your own choice...

I remember back around 1998-99 when I would listen to late night talk radio while at work on the graveyard shift.  There was a show called Coast-to-Coast A.M., hosted by Art Bell.  On it he regularly had on as guests folks espousing their doomsday theories about the upcoming Y2K debacle when all the world's computer systems would fail and we would be sent back into stone age conditions.  One of the show's advertisers sold several months' supplies of storable food, anticipating this possibility and wanting to capitalize on listeners' anxieties.  But that's part of how commodities are routinely marketed: you're not safe until you buy our product...and oh by the way, you need the latest model that really makes you safe, not what you already have.  Philip K. Dick hit the target dead center with his story...