"I have a mango tree ... This tree is currently saving my life, but might also get me killed soon."

That's Busteq. He's a middle-class Venezuelan who lives in a nice neighborhood. In short, he's a lot like many of you, except his country (which has more oil than any other nation on earth) saw its currency go tits-up when gas got super cheap last year. This, combined with almost comical levels of government corruption, has brought their civilization to the brink of collapse.

We're barely exaggerating there. Venezuela is now facing the kind of food shortages that mean Busteq and his neighbors are essentially living through the first five minutes of a zombie apocalypse movie. At that time, Busteq probably didn't give much thought to his two mango trees -- the same as how you don't spend much time thinking about whether your windows can keep out the undead.

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OK, maybe Cracked readers aren't exactly a prototypical group for the zombie preparedness comparison ...

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But the accouterments of modern civilization fell away piece by piece, beginning with marauding gangs of criminals. "They took everyone's phone, so no one carries a phone anymore." Then, wild animals started appearing. "People abandon[ed] their pets because they could not feed them ... starting first with exotic pets, like [monkeys], then everyone starts dumping their dogs near that park. If you go today to that park, you can find around 30 dogs that were just left there. They formed a pack. A swarm of dogs ... 30-40 dogs. The people around the community are taking care of the dogs [now], but at some point, it will probably spiral out of control."