As Hurricane Milton approached Florida last month, a mother in suburban Tampa went viral on TikTok for her refusal to follow evacuation orders. When talking about feeling safe in her home, she said, “My husband built this house commercial. It’s a residential area, but it’s built commercial quality.” She handled the sentence like a crucifix.

It’s not hard to see why commercial quality is a balm for apocalyptic fears. The phrase evokes both the familiar features of consumer life and the infrastructure built to withstand the relentless churn. Commercial grade is the conveyor belt that supplies your Krispy Kreme airport and the system that delivers oxygen when you’re at 30,000 feet.

Failed bunkers that only the rich can afford appeal to both senses of the word. They have state-of-the-art air and water filtration systems, bullet- and explosion-proof walls and, nestled in all that industrial might, the kind of commercial fun their residents might be missing while the world is on fire: bowling alleys and movie theaters, lazy rivers and go-kart tracks.

These latest features reveal the ambitious side of commercial quality. It’s classic rich man stuff, and when the media talks about houses like Candy Spelling’s mansion in Los Angeles, it’s not the most expensive features they usually mention, but the commercial ones, like the gift wrapping room.

It do feel undeniably luxurious, making it commercial residential area. There’s a reason most kids don’t fantasize about owning a modest farm. They dream of an abundance that is bulletproof and fortress-like: being locked in a Costco, sleeping in the Mattress Emporium, everything you need wrapped around you like a hug. And while even a child knows that you can’t live in a store forever, the fantasy becomes feasible when you take the store home. You can have a soda machine in the kitchen and a McDonald’s in the foyer, just like Richie Rich.

A certain kind of affluent adult still harbors this dream. My father’s parents – middle-class but pathologically frugal – wouldn’t even buy him a baseball glove, and he will correct this sense of deprivation forever. When he finally got a house with a spare bedroom, the first thing he did was put a hotel-style minibar and luggage rack in it. He has the same set of steak knives they gave you at a Lone Star Steakhouse, the very sheets you sleep on at a Hyatt, and attics, garages, and storage rooms filled with backups of everything he needs. For him, the American dream is not Rolexes and Ferraris. It’s inventory.

But why is Richie Rich’s McDonald’s at home more exciting than an assistant who can get a Big Mac at any hour? Isn’t a vending machine that dispenses free soft drinks just a refrigerator with extra steps? For many people, it’s so much more exciting to portray a purchase without having to pay a dollar, to forgo the transaction and keep the rest.

This proposition is especially tempting for people for whom making a purchase is a fraught, hair-raising experience. Their dream of prosperity is not a store where you can buy anything you want, but a store where everything is free because you have already bought it. This distinction becomes especially salient in light of the supply chain shortages that continue to reverberate years after the COVID-19 lockdowns. During the pandemic, many Americans had the troubling experience of being able to afford something but not being able to buy it. It is therefore logical that the fun of the pinball machine at home lies not only in the unlimited play, but also in the fact that you never have to scrape a quarter.

Ray Oldenberg coined the term “third space” to describe the public spaces – cafes, parks, shops, churches – that are essential for fostering a sense of community outside home (the first space) and work (the second). But as the cabin class sees the second space fold into the first, the third space looks set to follow suit. Why go to a park when you have a garden, or to a café when you can get barista-quality espresso in your kitchen? When everything you need can be delivered to your home, you no longer have to go to a store. We actually have the shop at home.

I want to deride this impulse as isolationist, a symptom of everything that’s wrong with America, but I also understand it. In my city it takes me 30 minutes to walk to my favorite supermarket. Of course I wish it was closer. I’m starting to wish it was a fifteen minute walk, but then I wish it was just five minutes away, or better, across the street, or best, on the ground floor of my building, so I wouldn’t even the need to step outside. You start with reasonable comfort: an in-unit washer and dryer, a small patch of greenery, a smooth commute. But if you follow this optimization to its logical end, if you design your perfect city, your perfect home, you can soon find yourself alone in a bunker.

Once Hurricane Milton passed, more than 120 homes in its path were leveled. Tropicana Field needed a new roof, but it survived, as did the hospital. And after a 10-day absence from TikTok, the Tampa mom posted a serene video from her porch as the sun set over the Gulf. The storm may have been biblical and their house may have suffered some leakage, but she had been right: commercial quality prevailed.

Emily Mester is the author of the upcoming book “American Bulk: Essays on Excess.”