Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Got grits?

(Image source here.)

Necessity of food storage, primitive society, utter chaos, impending doom. This is a sampling of what's been on my mind lately. And by lately I mean since about ten o'clock last night when the power blacked out and I was certain the end of the world had officially come. Sadly, I'm only exaggerating a little. Growing up in the sticks, it was not at all uncommon for the electricity to black out for a good amount of time (which sucked even more as our water came from an electric pump... mid-shower blackouts were especially awesome). But I have lived here for going on eight years, and I have NEVER experienced a blackout that lasted as long. Seconds, maybe, but not even minutes and certainly not over an hour! (Last night, electricity was down for an hour and a half!!)

I was scared. My gut reaction was to start filling buckets with water (see childhood reference above). After Derek assured me that the water still worked and we didn't need to worry, I decided to take a bath. As I was doing so (by the light of a lantern), the thought kept coming to me that this might be the last hot bath I would have in a long while. (I know, right?) Then I started thinking of what we would do if the electricity never came back up. How would grocery stores operate? How would we pay for anything? Our money, our entire society, is absolutely electronic! Only the people with piles of cash would be able to buy food! We have a total of twelve bucks in cash. Our babies are going to starve!!! Really, I even discussed with Derek the possible necessity of feeding the family on breast milk. (Don't guffaw; you'd drink it too if it came down to it!)

Anyway, I know that faith and fear cannot coexist. But I also know that "if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." The thing is: we are not prepared. It's terrifying to think that if something happened, we'd be screwed. We have a lot of friends and family that love us, but if we tried to borrow oil from their lamps their children would be hungry. Even the nicest of people won't sacrifice their children for you. Sharing won't really be an option. We'll need our own resources. And, you know, maybe some guns.

Needless to say, it was a long night. And you can bet we will be getting oats and iodine for our birthdays this year. Gold coins in our stockings. And solar panels on our apartment if we can swing it (wink).

4 comments:

bladenfamily said...

You make me laugh. This is a good thing to think about though. I'd better get pregnant soon so I can start producing some milk!

bart said...

One year the power went out on Thanksgiving. We were trying to decide the best way to cook a Turkey by candle-heat. Luckily, it didn't come to that.

Katie and I also discussed the possibility of returning to primitive society. Here was our solution:
http://onomatopoopa.blogspot.com/2009/03/and-on-that-farm.html

katie said...

ha ha ha. Bart is so funny.

Also, Becca, you are hilarious! If you want to come to Philly you can eat beans with us cause that's pretty much what we want the most for our food storage since they are so delicious! Screw wheat!

Linda Oxborrow said...

Funny post, and yet has so much truth behind it.