Are You Prepared?

Being prepared for the worst situation is something insurance company ads like to scare us about.  The local news spends inordinate amounts of time talking about bad weather that may or may not be coming.  It drives people to toilet paper hoarding behavior quite unnecessarily.  Being prepared is so important that an entire sex of scouts claims it as their motto.  Since I am neither a boy, nor scout I wonder if that group actually does stuff or just spends time getting ready to do something.  Wouldn’t a better motto be, “Be Prepared and Actually Get Something Done”?

Today at lunch a group was talking about people who think the end is coming so they are preparing by buying food that will survive in the packages for twenty-four years – guaranteed.  I can guarantee that if the worst does happen and you open that food and it is no good you will have a hard time getting your money back from the guys who made it.  If some kind of holocaust happens I am not interested in sticking around until I run out of some stinkin’ survival food.  I’m prepared to just go in the deluge and not worry about repopulating the planet.  I’m clean out of repopulating supplies any way.

This afternoon I arrived home to a powerless house.  Since I usually get in my house through the automatic garage door opener I had to go old school and find a key to open a regular door.  I was prepared for that emergency.  It was still light enough to see inside without lights, but I realized that soon enough the darkness was coming.  I went to my abundant lantern, flashlight, battery and candle storage area and gathered enough illuminating power to run a small village.  I took stock in my head of the food in the refrigerator, which could be heated, on my gas stove top.  I did not want to open the fridge and let out any cold. All these things were good.  I was prepared.

Then I thought about what I was not prepared for.  We have a gas-powered generator in the garage.  I don’t think I know if we have any gas for it and I do know that I don’t know how to run it.  This would seem like something I should learn since in the 19 years we have lived in our house Russ has only ever been home for 2% of any power outages.  I thought about writing my blog, but realized that I had not charged either my computer or my ipad and writing on my phone is really too slow.  We have two fireplaces, but I think most of our wood is very old and soaking wet outside.  I was clearly not prepared.  Then the power came back on.

Here is my takeaway.  Life is a balancing act between spending time preparing for the worst or living like everything is going to be all right.  I like having a cabinet stocked with toilet paper so there is no need to run out to the store at the mere mention of a snowflake or two.  I like buying two boxes of cereal at a time so I don’t discover that I only have two spoonfuls when pouring my morning bowl.  I like belonging to AAA so someone else can lie on the ground and change my flat tire.  That is being prepared to me.  What I don’t like is stock piling weapons and food in case terrorist invade Durham NC.  I think I am as prepared as I care to be.