In case of an emergency...

I set a goal for myself (which I usually don't do because it's so annoying to have to actually do something productive) to have our emergency kits (72 hour kits, if you will) ready by the end of June, and it looks like I'll actually make it! Geez, that sentence had a lot of annoying side notes (sorry about that), and was probably hard (or impossible) to get through (if you even kept reading).

Despite being reminded constantly to get these kits assembled, I am just barely doing ours. And while it's been very good to do, I've got such a crazy imagination that it's also been a little stressful. I mean, when you hear emergency, what do you picture?? Probably an instance like New Orleans where there were warning signs and people had time to gather their things and leave in their cars. What do I picture? Some sort of alien vs. human warfare happening right outside my home that destroys everything in sight, except my family of four (sorry all you other people). After all the alien ships have left we'll have to dig our way out of the rubble, survey the damage and realize that civilization as we know it has been destroyed. We'll then grab our 72 hour kits and hop in the Rhino (the only other things miraculously untouched by the gunfire and bombs), and set out in search of human life. Something tells me that if that's what actually happens, our three days worth of food is just not going to cut it. Seems like I should also put some seeds in there and learn a bit more about horticulture just in case we find some fertile soil and have to start our own settlement.

Anyway, back to reality. So we've got our kits assembled, minus a few things that I'll hopefully finish finding next week. Alexis has been watching me do all this, and now "emergency" is her new favorite word. Like when we're at the pool and she tells everyone that "tomorrow we're going to have an emergency". Which means I've now got the job of trying to explain to a three year old what an emergency is without scaring her too badly. Remember the worm's house incident? She scares easily. So this afternoon after hearing the word "emergency" wrongly used about 100 times I sat her down and tried to explain. I used the example of an earthquake and how it might knock houses and buildings over, and then the grocery stores couldn't open and people wouldn't be able to buy food or clothes or water, so they should have some ready just in case that happens. After going through this whole spiel about earthquakes, her only question was "but if we're outside how will we change our clothes so people don't see us". So apparently my earthquake story didn't scare her, but my constant "don't show your underwear" speeches has.

So if you don't have your kits together, do it! If you're aren't worried about the aliens, at least do it so that if an emergency happens while you are in the shower, you have some spare clothes somewhere. You'll be saving me the trouble of explaining to my daughter why you're outside naked