"In a Survival Situation, You Live as Long as Your Feet Do"


Wherein Our Heroine is Lax.
The sine wave of national worry seems to be peaking again, and it reminds me of my own inadequacy in the realm of preparedness. As usual, Teresa Nielsen Hayden has put together an interesting and informative post on the subject of "jump bags" (or "go bags") that also has interesting and informative comments (her readership continues to astonish me: intelligent, informed, diverse, and polite. Not things you generally find all together on the internet).

Growing up in New England, a survival bag was all about the warm in the winter. Extra wool socks, old Bean boots, an elderly scarf and hat (chosen for warmth and lack of wearability in a non-survival situation on the grounds of all-around ugliness), perhaps a blanket all lived in the car from November through March. Even in theoretically safe conditions, the cold was nothing to be toyed with: my mother was borderline hypothermic after a 20-minute drive to the commuter rail in an old truck with a broken heater. Luckily, she was a regular on that train and her commuting friends recognized by her strange, incoherent speech that something was very wrong and provided emergency assistance.

These days, emergency preparedness runs the gamut between denial and bunker-building. Jokes about plastic and duct tape aside, I really should review what I have in the car and what is in our depleted pantry and cellar. If nothing else, winter is coming and the DC area can get incapacitated by six inches of snow. Two years ago, we had two feet of snow in 24 hours and John and I were snowed in for three days.

As for the title of today's post? Well, my feet are lousy, and not just because of my irremediable klutziness. So, since I'm obviously toast, I'm going to start rehearsing my speech. It starts, "My bunions! Save yourself! I'm done for!..."
Posted: Tuesday - November 16, 2004 at 08:11 AM         | |

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