Now, I’m not a big-city lawyer, or indeed, any kind of lawyer at all, or even the resident of a big city. But there’s nothing in any law book that says I can’t offer my fellow citizens a morsel of well-informed legal advice. Which is as follows: Buckle. The. Fuck. Up. Because the laws of God and man are suspended during an eclipse, so plan accordingly.

“But why would an eclipse have anything to do with the law?” you ask. Well, I could tell you about the secret Greco-Masonic fail-safes built into the Constitution, or the black budget UN Office of Restricted Astronomy, but honestly, the answer is quite simple: In order for a crime to occur, it must happen on a particular day, and the Sun sets at the end of the day. Ipso facto, the temporary occlusion of a solar body creates a quasi-liminal “un-day,” if you will, in which, legally speaking, nothing can be said to have occurred.

I’m not saying this is going to be like The Purge, where all crime is legal. That was a movie, and this is real life. But will your friends and neighbors immediately turn on you? It’s a safe bet. Will roving gangs of eclipse-addled street punks roll flaming oil barrels into your house? Likely. And let’s not even get started on the sybaritic Moon orgies. They’ll cover the sidewalks like writhing autumn leaves.

The best advice I can give is to tell you to construct an extravagant panic room full of deadly eclipse-themed traps, like, I don’t know, maybe a giant sundial that crushes people? Alternately, grab the nearest fire axe and just start swinging it indiscriminately. You’ve got about 160 seconds of pure hell to survive, and mercy will be a luxury we leave behind with the daylight.