Preparednessiness

     I'm particularly fond of the suffix 'ness'.  The best definition of  'ness' is to exemplify a quality or state of something.  If I need to convey the super quality of a word, I simply do the double whammy 'ness' on the end of it.  That helps get my point across.  My old English teacher would be proud.

     I have two members of my family who are a lot alike.   They are not related by blood, only through marrying into the tribe, but, none the less, they could have come from the same mold.  Cut from the same cloth, so to speak.

     They are preppers.  People who prepare for the worst of times, times of chaos in the human race.  Times when people will run a muck in the streets because of some planetary collapse, like when the store runs out of eggs.

     They are not like the ones seen on the reality TV shows with bunkers, forts and 30 plus years of food stock piled....at least not yet.  They lay low, just under the radar.  They have things they figure will come in handy and gear on the ready, if they need to head for the hills.  

     I used to tease the younger of this preparednessiness duo that if the grid really did go down, he would be the first one we ate.  He used to be pretty concerned about germs and since water would be a most precious commodity, he wouldn't be able to shower four times a day, or use 5 towels to dry with.   He has since had two children and the second one has pretty much cured him of any germ phobia he may have had.  

     I have always listened to them, with much interest, as they shared with me their recent product inventory, but never gave much thought to actually doing this myself.  Then "it" happened, a mini Armageddon if you will.

     The power grid went down.  Not only did it crash, it stayed down for a whole whopping three hours and fifteen FREAKING minutes.  Good grief, it was pandemonium in the streets.

     It happened to happen on a school day and ten minutes into this disaster the social media was a buzz with people wanting to know if school would be dismissed.  Thank goodness the cell towers were still working.  No one could get through to the schools and the visions of frozen little children, still sitting at their desks with a math book open to page 216, were beginning to raise a panic.  I had a vision myself, of the secretaries at the schools with the land line phone receiver lying on the desk, just so they didn't have to answer it.

    The inside temperatures began to drop.  Someone stated it was 58 degrees in their home...what must it be at the school?  Then all hell broke loose and people began to go get their children out of school, since no one would answer the phone.  Surely there were icicle stalactites hanging from the school ceilings because at this time the power had been out about 45 minutes.  I was wondering what good that would do, they didn't have any power at their homes either.  Maybe they planned to just ride around in the car, until normality was restored.

     I checked our thermometer, it was 67 degrees.  I eyed the small vent less gas heater in the kitchen.  It has a fake log in it and when it was installed, I built a fireplace surround to give it a more fireplaceiness appearance.  I could have turned it on, but that would have meant taking everything off the mantel to get to the controls. Since it was nice sunny day, albeit a cold day, I chose to throw on a blanket and read for awhile, along with keeping up with the social media posts.

     Yes, it was a cold day.  Yes, the power stayed off for a bit longer than expected, but here's the deal....it's been cold in this part of the country for a long time.  If it warmed up to 58 degrees outside, for just one day, all the kids would have been outside with no coats. Shoot, I'd been out there too.

     So this got me to thinking about all this prepper stuff.  If people got this upset with being without power for a tad bit over three hours, what would they do if it was out for days at a time?  I decided that maybe I should pay a little more attention to being prepared.  

     My youngest prepper had told me he met a man who had five years worth of firewood.  This man, during a catastrophe, would be considered a rich man.  

     I don't know how deep the hole would have to be, or just where I should start digging.  Maybe under my fish pond, a secret doorway to a deep dark tunnel and I think I will even be able to get my husband in on this one, without an eye roll.....BECAUSE,  I figure the keeper of the cold beer might rank even higher than the firewood guy.