Have you guys ever seen this show on Nat Geo?
It’s kind of like Hoarders, in that it’s sort of freaky to look out, but you really can’t look away.
So the premise of the show is that these folks, usually the male heads of households, are prepping for whatever disaster they think is going to befall our society. Now, I think preparedness is awesome – there is nothing worse than being that idiot who doesn’t have any candles or a flashlight that works when the electricity goes out. But these folks are the extreme cases – they’ve stockpiled ammunition, dehydrated food, coffee, alcohol, weapons, and usually built some sort of underground bunker as well. Usually, their teenaged children are extremely embarrassed, and their wives pretend to go along with it, but wish their husbands were into normal things, like paying $50 to be a part of an imaginary football league.
By the way, I’m going somewhere with all of this…
So, in the course of planning this wedding, I managed to get nearly 200 mason jars together, most of them purchased from folks off of good ‘ol Craigslist. Since we’re moving to the new house soon, I needed to move some of this stuff quickly, so I threw up an advert on Craigslist, and got a response from a man who seemed normal. In fact, we’ll just call him Mason to be safe.
So I played it really safe, I had everything packed up for him, had one of the neighbors watching out for me, and let my husband know what time, and where me and Mason were meeting up with the jars.
Here’s where stuff gets weird.
Mason and I met up to do the exchange of goods, when I made the fatal mistake of asking him what it was that we was doing with all the jars. Now, you have to imagine this in a southern accent to make it legit.
Mason: Ya ever heard of preppers?
Me: ::incredulously:: Yeah…so…but what is it that you’re canning?
Mason: Oh EVERYTHANG. I already have dehydrated food, enough for 4-6 years….
Mason went on to share the following.
- He has 60-70 guns STOCKPILED on his property somewhere. He also gives stuff to his son to hold onto when he runs out of space.
- He does not drink, but that he is thinking about starting to stockpile alcohol. It is very multipurposeful and could be a good bartering tool. However, should disaster befall our society, he “might not be in a sharing kind of mood” <-direct quote
- He recently built himself an assault rifle that fits nicely into a tennis racket. However, he does not carry it in his car because it makes police officers really nervous, and he doesn’t want the hassle of trying to get it back if it gets confiscated.
- He has a lot of ammunition in his car just rolling around in the backseat.
- That he needs to stock up on fishing line in case he needs to do some emergency surgery on anyone when doomsday comes.
And THAT is my one and only interaction with a real-life doomsday prepper.
Now legit question – all weirdness with Mason the prepper aside, how prepped are you and your family for normal emergency situations?
Overactive Blogger 
So I go backpacking and hiking so I usually keep my backpack stocked as a go-bag. It has survival essentials – knife, flashlight, batteries, firestarters, first aid kit, sleeping bag, emergency blanket, a couple granola bars, bottle of water, that kind of thing. I think it’s good to be prepared for enough food and water to last at least a couple days. Anything can happen to disrupt our normal lives. As we witness in NYC 2 years ago, just one major storm can interrupt normal food distribution.
But I dont know if I am at bunker-building stage.
We are not quite at bunker building stage either – we definitely have cash, food, knives randomly, but once we move to the new house, I’d like to get more fresh water – for some reason that is the thing that sticks out to me as something that we need.
I made a kit for my husband, our dog, and myself two years ago. Each year I go through it and replace any expired food, etc. It’s a large Rubbermaid tote and is filled to the brim with food, water, gatorade, first aid stuff, a change of clothes each, dog food and leash, rope, tarp, sheet, batteries, walkie talkies that can also function as an emergency radio, etc. I do need to buy a good hunting knife though. And the fishing line sounds like a good idea! Although I’d probably only buy one package of it vs. multiples for surgery! haha.
We actually have some pretty decent knives that my husband keeps oiled and sharp. You never know when the Walking Dead will become a real thing….