clean water

What flavor of apocalypse matters a lot. If it's zombies, ammo becomes critical. If it's nuclear, ammo is less important and water filtration probably becomes critical. If it's a gigantic asteroid that blots out the sun, water is easy to find but food is critical.

For an unknown apocalypse, I think I'll go with gasoline. Not critical in and of itself, but helps a lot more generally with a lot of stuff, being able to power a generator and move camp more easily.

Milk, given an unlimited supply i won't have to worry about it spoiling. Gives a decent amount of nutrients and water and can use it to make cheese or butter eventually, And is a life without cheese and butter really worth living?

Water; for living

Hugs from a nice person. The apocalypse is going to be really depressing I'll need the love

Fresh, hot pizza from Ray's.

Not fresh at the time of the apocalypse. Fresh at the time I seek it.

Of course that would mean I would also get a steady supply of clean water and of all the ingredients required to make the pizza. But that is simply a secondary side effect of having made my choice for the one, single thing.

Toilet paper. During apocalyptic scenarios, it's worth is apparently uncountable, so I will be able to trade it and live a life of opulence.

Along those lines antibiotics would be better.

I'm diabetic. I choose insulin.

All you big brains saying water.

My first thought was soybeans, since they're so versatile. Or corn for the same reason. Granted, I don't have any way to process them so I didn't think it through.

But a food source that also provides water would be a good idea. Watermelon is too sweet to be your primary food though.

drinkable water

Bottle caps.

Antibiotics.

We all would die so quickly and horribly without them.

Iodized salt. I live in iowa, we have planty of water (i can figure out how to filter it), and a great climate for growing food. However our soilis naturaly low iodine and there is no salt around so those are critical nutriants I don't think I could get here.

second would be iron - we don't have any and It is usefur for a lot.

Army MREs, the modern ones.

Assuming I'm not teleported elsewhere, the place I live has plenty of drinkable fresh water and other supplies, so the only real concern is having consistent high-quality food available, and MREs are engineered to support people in the wild for several months, if not years. In case of a major war breaking out, so it would contain everything I would need to stay alive, or to trade to other people.

Electricity would be tempting. If you have access to water, you can boil it to make it safe. Run a refrigerator to store food. A convenient source of heat for cooking. Stay warm in the winter, stay cool in the summer. Lights for when it's dark. Use power tools to build things. Listen to music, watch movies, play those old Nintendo games.

Even after some time when your electronics break down and scavenging working ones gets tough, it's not difficult to build things like simple resistive heaters. Making crude incandescent light bulbs wouldn't be impossible either.

Goats. Food, friends and defense.

Easy answers first. Potable water! You need it every day, helps with sanitation, growing food, etc.

If you wanted more like discrete consumable objects, keflex.

Edit: Or salt!

Drinkable water.

Insulin.

unlimited other earths to live in

My meds. I don't think I'll be able to do shit without them.

nobody has said rice or potatoes or anything like that. you're all completely fucked

also cum

Condoms, in case we need to repopulate the earth

Pregnant women. Because they're hot and their milk supply is easy to induce.

Gin, I don't plan on surviving in an apocalypse

Beans. Not only about the most important food source, legumes are also natural nitrogen fixers for soil health.

Not a single mention of bullets? Seriously?

In an apocalypse, ammunition will be worth more than gold.

Will "fully equipped cruize ship" count as one item? Then I can scavenge them for all parts required to build new civilization.

And if it is not, then question to OP, what is the limit for the composite items to stop being counted as one item?

You guys were smart to say water, first thing I thought of when I read the question though was peanut butter.

weed

A machine that allows me to travel across space-time so I can just nope-out of the universe amd find a new one in a timelime where the apocalypse didn't happen.

Paracord. You can weave it into just about anything. Can probably also weave a water filter.

Fully-stocked cruise ships.

Heroin. Either build an army of addicts who're completely loyal to me or I can just off myself depending on how things are going.

Nanobots!

AA-batteries

Fully loaded guns. Watermelons (provides nutrition and water) are also a good candidate.

I think alcohol would be useful for trading.

Post-apocalyptic enough for that item not to be 7.62x51?

Lighter is a good choice, but I'm thinking toilet paper rolls for bartering.

A) Something to trade (rely on others)

B) Something for ME to survive on (rely on nobody)

C) Something to rebuild (everyone relies on me)

I generally lean towards rebuilding, but it really depends on what apocalypse we're talking about here. Zombie? Nuclear war? Asteroid? Nazis? Waterworld?

So, assuming I can survive enough, I'd pick rebuild critical tech like rubber or a way to forge steel or a critical chemical. Think, "Doctor Stone".

But if I need to survive like a water world or a desert world or a zombie outbreak, what I pick is going to be pretty fucking different. Cigarettes don't mean shit if there's no water. Water don't mean shit if that's all you have. And none of that matters if you're stuck in a world with aerosolized zombie infection that results in smart running zombies that fast heal.

a thermos of fruit smoothies that is forever cold and will not run out. This kinda work with all kind of apocalypse because foods and drinks is the number 1 thing that would hard to come by, and smoothie is both food and water.

Ongoing? Fresh clean salad 🥗. This assumes I can scrounge/ kill/ for other kinds of food. It implies there's a source somewhere, so perhaps I could trace it, for water and arable land. It contains clean water, and while lettuces are not a super food they have C which I can't store and K which is good for cuts. And if necessary I could wipe my ass with a leaf of it .

Economy Wonderglue. I've played Fallout 4, I know what you need.

A packet of Timtams.

Flour. Maybe rice. Something of that nature. The only alternative option that's even close to food might be fuel, depending on the nature of the disaster.

Water is everywhere outside of deserts, and there's enough raw materials for a thinned population to recycle for a long time. Food and medicine is what separates the living from the dead, and medicine isn't a single item. Edit: Although antibiotics or water treatment tablets are probably the closest approximation.

Pleasantly surprised to not see more throwing star-type answers.

Fuel cans probably.

malted barley In the end of the world, or even just at the collapse of civilization as we know it, these can be used to make beer. Yeast is naturally occurring, hops just grow on vines, but malting grains seems to be the hardest part of the process to me.

can I get them all in one lump sum or do I have to use them up before getting another?

Ok so some people are asking what type of apocalypse but I feel that's mostly irrelevant because you said it's a post apocalypse scenario. The apocalypse has already passed.

So there's kind of two options. One is where I would be the sole survivor on the planet, and the other is where there's still pockets of survivors out there.

Most post apocalypse situations involve other people surviving, so I'll start there.

You didn't put a limiter on what the item could be, whether it had to be realistic or not, and how this supply would come to be. So I'll give three answers, each with different degrees of what I'm assuming your intention behind the question is.

The first would be an infinite supply of non tricky, non malevolent genie lamps. Infinite wishes baybee, this trumps pretty much everything.

Something more fantastic but more reasonably grounded would be computers, with a complete set of data on human history, art, music, science and schematics, with instructions on how to rebuild society in a more equitable way, translated into all languages possible, with a pictogram of how to charge it up etched on the outside. Pass those suckers around, rebuild society, got infinite of them, everyone gets one and it has the windows space pinball from the 90s on it just for fun.

But since you said lighters, to play with the idea of things that exist, I'm gonna go with tents. Probably those onion shaped ones that are designed to be permanent housing, or yurts. Sure water and food are important but without shelter you're fucked, and I could house everyone.

Now if it were an apocalypse where I'm the only survivor, I would want an infinite supply of one thing.

BACKUP. GLASSES.

Paper, good for lighting fires and keeping people honest. Also I'm guessing pretty hard to make

Genies in a lamp

Sorta depends on the apocalypse but for most I will take the airline bottles of a high end vodka.

Mainly maps, but also other informative reading materials such as natural medicine, almanacs and other foraging guides.

Something like Soylent. You can live off of it for a very, very long time. Enough time to get your garden growing.

Potable water is good, perhaps wheat berries or ibuprofen would be good too.

As for an unorthodox answer, I'm going to say survival guides. Most people have some idea of how they might survive, but it couldn't hurt to have a resource to fill any knowledge gaps.

Waterproof matches.

I choose an unlimited supply of cell-phone minutes so I can say "told you so" to all the apocalypses deniers.

Gout sufferer checking in, Prednisone

Depends on the apocalypse.

ammunition could get you anything you could need. drinking water would be a second i guess, but you could with effort gather drinkable water.

ammunition is heavy, but no where near as heavy as water for trading purposes,