By Beth Buck
With Hurricane Season well behind us, we can get on with enjoying the Holiday Season and everything that comes with it. The close of the year is a good time for reflection on what we could have done better—and what we could have done worse. If you kept track of all the natural disasters that happened in 2017 and felt disappointed to have missed out on a miserable experience, don't despair. It's never too early to think about next year.
“2017 hasn't been half bad” you are probably thinking. “But it would have been so much better if only I had gotten stranded by flooding, without any food or water.” When you are neck-deep in a natural disaster or other emergency, you want to be sure you have the most miserable experience possible, or it's just a waste of time. But how to do it? Check out these six tips to enhance your discomfort in any emergency.
1) Don't get a 72-hour kit. 72-hour kits are for losers. You don't want to be able to grab and go to escape a wildfire; that would be too easy. No, when the emergency evacuation order comes, you should spend twenty minutes wandering around your house like a lost soul dithering about whether to take your bowling ball or your perfect attendance trophy from 5
th grade. If you have 72-hour kits,
don't rotate them. There is nothing quite like eating rancid granola bars while trying to get your 5-year-old to fit into his spare size 2T clothing..
2) Don't have any food storage. Why would you want to store a bunch of stuff like
wheat berries?
Wheat isn't used for anything good, anyway. It just takes up valuable room in your house that you could use for your collection of antique rake handles. If disaster strikes and you get hungry, you can always go to your next-door neighbor's house. You know for a fact he has all the rice and beans you could possibly want, plus who knows what else. Surely he'll let you crash at his place with your four kids. That is what neighbors are for. After all, you let him borrow your leaf blower last month, right?
3) Don't evacuate. Ever. Evacuation is for quitters who can't take the heat/rain/floodwaters.
4) If you Replace yourself living paycheck to paycheck and then have an unexpected windfall, absolutely, under no circumstances should you put your extra into savings. Blow it all on something shiny, like that antique collection of rake handles you've had your eye on for a while now. Or shares in a company that imports organic ice from Alaska.
5) Never learn new skills, cultivate a garden, or do anything “preparedness-y.” That stuff is strictly for the experts, not normal people like yourself. Besides, acquiring skills takes up valuable time and that new series on Netflix isn't going to watch itself.
Disclaimer: Because this is the internet, it is necessary to clarify that you have just read a satire. If you saw a little bit of yourself or your own attitudes in this, you should be able to see potentials weaknesses in your overall preparedness strategy.
Beth Buck has been involved with emergency preparedness since her very earliest years. She enjoys hiking, martial arts, reading, and writing about food storage. Beth lives in the Intermountain West with her family.
