"The minute that swine flu gets here I'm off down to Elio's Gun Shop," announced the economist.
This might sound a little over the top, but in our house all viruses are approached within the parameters of zombie movies.
Zombie movies are excellent instruction manuals for dealing with pandemics, which may explain why Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later are currently enjoying enormous popularity at the DVD store.
As the NZ health authorities have learnt, containment is futile, so once the virus grabs hold, it's best to board up the windows, booby-trap the lawn and hunker down for the long haul.
Zombie movie rules: in the event of an outbreak, first assemble a crack team with the necessary skills for a post-apocalypse world.
As in Shaun of the Dead, it might initially be difficult to tell that a zombie infection has broken out, especially if you happen to be walking through South Dunedin of a Saturday morning.
You'll need a doctor (not of economics), a diesel mechanic, a survivalist/outdoors type/paramilitary chap.
"Get your paramilitary sorted and the rest falls into line," said the economist with a weird light in his eyes.
Presently on a High-Cost Drugs panel at the behest of the Ministry of Health (the irony, given what I got up to in my 20s, is not lost on me), the economist has been advising, unsolicited, the Ministry of Health Crises Management Centre on how to protect themselves from the shambling ranks of the undead.
He defies any distinction between pig-flu sufferers and legions of gore-encrusted, red-eyed rage victims.
"What about me?" I wondered.
"We don't need women," he explained in what was beginning to sound a very David-Koresh-at-Waco tone, "but later on we may wish to breed with you to re-establish society."
Rules for dealing with the Infected: if someone gets bitten, kill them instantly with a shot to the head.
Everyone knows the folly of letting your emotions get the better of you when zombies are biting.
That's a sure way to get gnawed on yourself.
You've got to be cruel to be kind.
Next, off to the supermarket.
By this time, the economist had entered a mystical rant.
"Shop as if we weren't coming back here for a month; we'll need enough supplies to hold out should we be quarantined. Plenty of canned goods and Paracetamol. Not chocolate. Oh all right, junk food will cheer us up when we get despondent.
"Just how accurate are you with a can of chick peas? Remember, head shots only. Perhaps stock up on cash, but it will soon be worthless in the breakdown of society. The new currency will be weapons, vehicles and medical supplies."
I could go and stay at my mother's, but she is likely to cluck, "Oh the zombies aren't bad, darling, just misunderstood", as they shriek and gibber outside.
Essential services staff will be of paramount importance, excellent news for my friend Kate, who has a uniform fetish so severe that her friends are planning to stage an intervention before she buys a police scanner and starts turning up at the scene of accidents.
As the swine flu virus mutates and hungry bands of shuffling zombies roam the countryside, pulling the boards off houses and biting the inhabitants (sounds like youth crime now) Kate will be purring, "Oh I do love a man in uniform", and the economist will be picking off the ravenous neighbours one by one as they clamber over our defences - a picnic table laid on its side - intent on pillaging our tinned peaches.
I shall document the last days for future generations to find clutched in my desiccated hand: Scott of the Epidemic.
Mr Puck the Siamese will no doubt survive us all.
Lisa Scott is a Dunedin writer.
