What's wrong with squirreling away a few bits and pieces for a rainy day (or drought, famine, flood or chemical warfare)?
Published in Emporium
Nothing makes a girl guide quite as happy as when she’s preparing for an impending crisis. She’s got tins of food stacked up beneath her bed, 10 of her favourite T-shirts in the back of the wardrobe for fashion emergencies and four lipsticks in her signature colour just in case it’s discontinued. She’s a modern survivalist and, unlike Mad Max or Will Smith in I am Legend, she is not a hairy loner in camouflage pants. She’s coiffed, successful and lives by the mantra: “When the going gets tough, the tough get stockpiling.”
Of course, some are more serious about it than others. Surf the net and you’ll see survivalist bloggers conferring on the best brand of gaffer tape, the merits of growing your own hydroponic carrots in the bathroom and who has started a collection of old gold coins to use as currency in case of economic meltdown.
In my family, we call this having a “Blitz” moment. I was never in The Blitz – I’m making the sign of the cross right now – but I shiver with delight whenever I imagine the camp beds lined up in basement bomb shelters. The thermos, wireless and blankets are arranged onto makeshift wooden shelves. There’d be a deck of cards as well, for jolly games of gin rummy with the rest of the street sheltering from the air raids. The reality of war is horrific, I know that, but what I’m talking about is staying one step ahead of the game. Utter bliss.
I went into Blitz mode when I was pregnant. At eight weeks (yes, weeks), I borrowed a label maker and furiously typed up “pumpkin soup”, “rice pudding” and “bolognaise sauce” and stuck them on to Tupperware containers. I never got around to actually filling them – I don’t even like rice pudding – but when I wasn’t throwing up I enjoyed myself immensely.
A friend was equally enthusiastic when she devised her game plan for disaster (SARS, Ebola, chemical warfare, you name it). She earmarked a room in her house – the master bedroom and ensuite – to where the family would flee at the first sign of trouble; bought masking tape to seal the windows and around the door; a big plastic container on wheels into which she placed a torch, sunscreen, tins of tuna, transistor radio, spare batteries, books to read, bottles of water and a game of Uno and stowed it under the bed.
We survivalists use words like “wise” and “prudent” when we are discussing stockpiling, but only a dedicated few go in for a two, three or four-year supply of food instead of a week’s worth of burnt lasagnes. One guy I heard being interviewed on radio recently, a former US intelligence officer, confessed to salting away wheat, rice, beans, honey, rolled oats and sugar into, not four-by-four inch plastic containers like me, but whopping 20-litre, food-grade buckets. He reckons he’s got enough to feed California for two or three years. Something tells me that this isn’t just a hobby for him.
What are we so afraid of? Is it the threat of a global food crisis? Power grid failure? Civil unrest? Terrorism? Whatever it is, survivalism apparently peaks at times of peril either real (post 9/11) or imagined (Y2K). In the 1950s, for instance, people built bomb shelters on their property because of nuclear threat. In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security encouraged Americans to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape in case of biological or chemical attack. In Australia, Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore developed the Go bag. It is probably made worse when officially sanctioned by governments.
Psychologists might call this fear a pathological need to control our surroundings. Others believe it stems from your background and whether your family has survived a natural disaster, war, depression or the holocaust. I want to know if a bitter divorce, a family get together with Uncle Lou and his trumpet or a birthday party with 20 four-year-olds count as a natural disaster?
It would explain my need to stockpile. I asked my mum whether we went through many crises as kids. Apparently, in 1987 we ran out of sherry on Christmas Day. And once we were evacuated during a bushfire. Both times we were not prepared. In fact, we were so hopeless during the fire our VW broke down in the driveway, the fire trucks couldn’t get past us and we couldn’t see anything for the smoke. I admit that a cupboard full of Spam probably wouldn’t have been much help here, except if we’d made sandwiches for the firemen who, having pushed our car onto the street, set to with the hose and saved the house even as the back fence was up in flames.
I like to think that I’ve taught my children to be prepared. When he was eight, my son made a first-aid kit out of a paper bag. Inside was a couple of Wiggles Band-aids, a piece of string and a rubber. It was school excursion day and he didn’t know what was going to happen out there. Whatever it was, he’d be ready with his bag of tricks. I think his teacher had a good laugh about it in the staff room later, but I was very proud.
Size doesn’t matter when it comes to emergencies. I have candles out and on saucers at the first sign of rain. I live in the city, but I grimly pack my favourite photos of me (looking slim and attractive) and passports the moment Australia is declared to be as dry as a tinderbox. My daughter’s boyfriend emergency? I’m ready. I’ll just reach for my stockpile of chocolate and bath salts.
I even go into survival mode when I’m packing for a trip. I solemnly decant my cosmetics case, my jewellery, my tampons, my medicines – antibiotics, vitamins and aspirin – into zip-lock bags. Soon my suitcase resembles a CSI evidence box. Never mind that I could get all these things at my destination.
The point is, anything can happen, anywhere, anytime. Be ready.