| Stocking Up for the Winter Scroll your mouse over the pictures... So, it's not fun to talk about, but sometimes, a household can run out of an essential product like toilet paper. This occasionally happened when I was growing up...someone would yell for me to go next door and borrow a roll from the neighbor. I would stand on the other side of the bathroom door and ask them, "What's it worth to you?" This is a good way to get the things you really want. I have found that there is a kind of desperation that occurs at that moment, and a resourceful person can take advantage of this. Well, it happened in our house last week, and everyone began to get worried as we watched the very last roll dwindle away. "There's not much left now," led to, "we're down to a third," to finally, "it's gone!" After putting off going to the store, we finally went to Walmart, buying some Halloween necessities...costumes and some candy for a party. Now for the irritating part...when we were passing by the toilet paper section, a light seemed to come on for every member of the family. Lest we forget such an important item, they all seemed to talk at once. "Toilet paper!" my daughter announced, in a voice that I felt was a little too loud. "We need some non-skid!" my husband said in a slightly louder volume, almost simultaneous with my son pointing at the tower of toilet paper and making some unintelligible noise...he sounded like a talking bird, "Awww!" People in the toilet paper aisle were laughing. I told my overly-eager family, "I think you can calm down about it...I mean, is it such an emergency that you will need it before we leave the store?" To this, everyone laughed harder. Not to be outdone by me, my husband said, "You know we've been out of toilet paper for a long time now, and it's getting a little uncomfortable. I had to move the couch (picture my hand over his mouth) mmmffff." I shudder to think what he might have said had he not been contained! Well, this experience has led me to believe that our family needs to make some changes in the way we live. We need to stock up on some of the essentials. Some people stock up only on food. I'm telling you, if there is ever a crisis where you can't get to the store, you will want toilet paper more than food. I went to Costco a few days ago and saw that they are selling emergency food supplies. Check this out... |
| I was fascinated by this big bucket of food. "It would last our family a long time," I thought, but then I remembered that everything we buy from Costco lasts our family a long time because the packages are so big. So really, anything we buy at Costco could be considered an emergency food supply. |
| Do you remember when there was such a big fuss over the Y2K bug? Supposedly, we weren't going to be able to buy anything, cars were going to quit running and computers were going to crash when the year changed from 1999 to 2000. I'll never forget this: I was in the grocery store on December 31, 1999, buying some bottled water (because we don't drink our well water). I had 4 gallons of water in my cart, along with some other groceries, and was standing in the checkout line, when a friend (one of the funniest guys I know) yelled to me across the crowded store. "You've got the water. I've got the batteries! Meet me back at the bunker!" Everyone stared at us. Not being a person who likes a lot of attention on myself, my face turned all shades of red! |
| So, feeling we should stock up, I've made a list of things to keep on hand: water toilet paper a bag of corn tortilla chips from Costco (you can't eat the whole bag, ever, I don't care how long you have them.) I think that ought to cover it. I suggest you make a trip to Costco and buy something in case of an emergency. Better be safe than sorry. Maybe your family will want something different than ours. A suggestion...the big jar of 3 bean salad lasts a long time. So does their cake. Whatever you choose, remember that Costco is your emergency food headquarters. And if we ever have a citywide emergency, I'll meet you back at the bunker. I'll bring the chips. |
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