If you are anything like my husband you might call my car messy. But if you are anything like me, you would call it an unintentional emergency preparedness kit.
In the event of a catastrophic apocalyptic type of occurrence, whose car would you choose? There are more nutritional calories in one of the crevices of my seats than my husbands entire vehicle. You could literally prolong your life by licking a seat.
My well-meaning husband kindly helps to manage the clutter frequently removes valuable, potentially life-saving, items from my vehicle.
At this very moment items in my unintentional emergency preparedness kit include:
-2 buckets, which have the potential to catch fish, collect rain water or provide a portable in-car toilet (now I know what you’re thinking, and no need to worry, the rest of the list will be here while you track down a bucket or two and place them in your vehicle).
-1 bottles worth of water in 3 separate containers, for drinking, washing hands or wound care.
-2 half eaten boxes of crackers, nutrition, clearly.
-1 sealed bag of mini wheats, nutrition again, but it is essential in case of extreme emergency that my kids have a food item that they WILL eat without complaint.
-A minimum of 2 handfuls of cheerios spread throughout my vehicle, more nutrition, or perhaps a lure for trapping creatures, for more nutrition. One of those buckets will really come in handy now (see diagram 1).
-An old iphone charge cable, to allow you to set and pull the large beast trap closed.
-8 paper crafts my daughters have lovingly created at day care, fire starter.
-22 laminated hundreds charts, in the event that the catastrophic event is long lasting, my daughters WILL have good number sense. 21 of these could be used as shingles on a makeshift roof.
-A waterproof beach blanket, that could double as an actual blanket or a tarp.
-3 diapers, self explanatory.
-1 full package of wipes, portable bath.
-3 sets of kids rubber boots, we will be spending a great deal of time in streams, for fishing/entertainment purposes.
-2 warm sweaters.
-2 child sized rain suits.
-1 adult rain jacket.
-1 umbrella, as you can see, I have a slight aversion to rain.
-40 pieces of gum, freshness in an emergency never hurt anyone.
-5 locking containers for food storage.
-A fully charged iphone 3, loaded with a variety of music, including “Eye of the Tiger,” which is of course potential motivation music for… well… anything.
-A hand-made happy birthday sign. That ribbon is 4 metres long and can easily hoist any food that has been procured into the air and out of the claws of large scavengers (see diagram 2a). It could also double as a birthday sign (see diagram 2b).
-3 pens, for performing potential tracheotomies. I’m not entirely sure what circumstances call for a tracheotomy, but I think I will know it when I see it.
-Roughly $2.78 in change. I haven’t found much of a use for this change yet, but I think it is important to take a complete inventory.
I wasn’t always this messy delusional prepared. I used to have a free hand, sometimes two. I used to take pride in maintaining a minimally messy vehicle, I regularly removed the refuse from the floor and placed it in a more appropriate place.
BUT this is my life now, so silver linings, lemons, lemonade or whatever.
I am prepared.
Are you?
There are no diapers in my vehicle, Natasha — but if we both get stopped at a roadside emergency, we’ll be able to “MacGyver” it successfully and save the day.
You never know what will happen out there. Carry a bit of everything, just in case!
hahah I completely agree, Barry, great minds 😉
I must agree with all of your very valid points!. Well said Natasha!!!
hahahaha thank you for calling them valid Shelley 🙂