I’m Chris. I’m 32. I’m married to a wonderful, beautiful woman. I’m the “daddy” of two adorable little kids, a girl and a boy. I’m a graduate student finishing up seven years of higher education in English and creative writing (poetry). And what does any of this have to do with emergency preparedness? Why is a would-be poet writing a blog post for Emergency Essentials®? Well, I work here, but I’m also a wannabe prepper.
I’ve been aware of the concept of prepping since childhood. My parents wanted to build up an emergency food supply, but with six kids and little money, they never quite got there. They taught me, if only in theory, that we should prepare ourselves for possible hard times. Now that I’m a husband and father, I, too, want to prepare my family. If I had the budget, I’d buy everything we need in one shot. If I had the discipline, I’d diligently chip away at it. One problem is I’m kind of an all-or-nothing person. I get easily overwhelmed by the thought of total preparedness and discouraged by the thought of baby-stepping. For all the time I spend watching YouTube videos and TV shows about wilderness survival and prepping, my “preps” are shameful. I have some disorganized camping equipment and a few extra cans of food, but I won’t claim to be prepared for a real emergency.
I’m also completely dependent on modern convenience and have an extremely low tolerance for discomfort. As much as I want to be an outdoorsman, I spend almost no time outdoors. Some of my best memories from childhood are of camping with my dad, and I want to give my kids memories like that, but I’ve only taken them camping once. Working here at Emergency Essentials® I’ve realized how useful camping could be for preparing myself and my family to live (temporarily) without modern luxuries.
I can’t claim the title of “prepper.” Not yet, anyway. Luckily, my wife is all for prepping. She’s the one who has kept extra food in the pantry. Meanwhile, I slapped together some 72-hour emergency kits for the family, though I’m not sure they’d sustain us for three days away from home. At least we have something, right? My wife and I both want to be prepared, but we still have to work out the kinks. Here are our excuses: I work full time, I’m preparing for a huge final exam, and working on my Master’s thesis; my wife takes care of our kids (one in second-grade, one in preschool, and both in gymnastics) and everything else.
Ok, there is no excuse not to prepare. I know this. I hope being surrounded by emergency preparedness stuff at work will kick me into gear to turn my daydreams of preparedness and self-reliance into reality. In the meantime, I’m excited to learn more about prepping, muster some motivation to do more, and write about it.
Chris, a.k.a. “Prep-Daddy”
