by Randy Dyess
“Won’t it affect the criminals as well? If the cops can’t get around because of the lack of gas, won’t the criminals have the same problem?”
“They might. But then again, what if part of each home invasion are the bad guys sucking all the gas out of any cars? They will think they can get enough gas each time they rob someone it won’t stop them. Getting gas may actually encourage them because they would be able to keep their cars filled up. They won’t have the same concerns as the cops about not having enough gas.”
“That makes sense to me. Why don’t we talk to RJ at the party? We can get his opinion. If he thinks guns are necessary, we get some and learn to use them. I do not want any guns in my houses until everyone, including both girls, is familiar with them. I don’t want the kids to think they are play toys and end up shooting themselves or anyone else.“
“I’m with you all the way on that. We should also talk to RJ about signing up at his gym for martial arts and other classes he teaches. We should not just rely on guns for protection. The more I think about it, the more I agree anyone of us can be attacked at any time once things start getting bad.”
Kelly looked at Mark with a smile, “You better not ever call me Terminator. I don’t care how good I get at karate or Krav Maga or anything else.”
Mark chuckled and knew they had tabled the discussion until later. He didn’t press for any more discussion on the topic. He wanted some more time to read what the crime rate did in the few other countries which had already suffered massive economic collapses. The histories of Argentina, Zimbabwe, Greece, Spain, and Italy should tell him something. He wanted to know if crime had gone way out of hand in those countries as they faced what he was sure America was about to face.
“What about the other issues?” asked Kelly.
“The disaster scenarios?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought about those while you were gone and I believe we should follow through with them as well. I don’t know what we will end up doing and I don’t want to make any changes based on this house unless we can transfer the work to another place. But if we do go through some scenarios, we might at least learn something that is useful everywhere.”
“Like what?” wondered Kelly.
“Like if we had a nasty storm and one of us got hurt. I would like to learn to do some basic first aid. It would be nice to know we could do something for the kids until help arrived. I don’t want to think about what I would feel like if I had to watch any of you in a lot pain. Or see you bleed to death because I didn’t want to take time to learn something simple which might have prevented your death. I’m no longer one of those people who still think the authorities will always be knocking on the door in a blink of an eye when I call them. I’m also no longer someone who thinks I should never have to do anything myself or be responsible for anything because the government will always be there for me.”
“I see your point. I don’t feel like getting into this today. Why don’t you work this over the next few days and we’ll go over it next Sunday.“
“I’ll do that. I don’t want to think about this anymore today either. I just want to sit here and hold my wife’s hand until the kids come home.”
Chapter 12
The new week started as expected with no new major issues cropping up at home or work. Mark was able to finalize his project plan for Owen on Monday and spend most Tuesday working up some disaster scenarios to go over with Kelly. It didn’t take him long to realize they were not even prepared for the simplest emergency, yet alone for any major disaster. Their old disaster preparations were to go to a hotel room and wait out the problem or run to the nearest clinic if someone was hurt. It didn’t matter if the issue was losing electricity for a few hours, a storm wiped out half the town, or one of the kids cut open their finger. In their minds, there would always be a hotel or clinic nearby. Their current plans had them walking away from everything and going to whatever store they could find with a credit card and buying supplies to ride out the disaster. Mark knew he had his work cut out for him if he wanted to have this family be able to ride out the simplest of disasters without outside help.
Once Mark got home and put the kids to bed, he was able to sit down with Kelly and go over some of the things he found during the day. “I looked over our disaster preparedness today,” Mark said as he took a drink of wine.
“Well, how did we do?” Kelly asked already knowing the answer.
“We failed miserably,” Mark laughed. “I don’t think either one of us would survive a stumped toe without calling a doctor or spending a night in a hotel. We don’t have anything ready. We have no copies of basic paperwork and we don’t even own a first aid kit, yet alone know how to use it. I think we have a lot of work ahead of us to be ready even for a simple storm.”
“That bad?”
“Yes, that bad. I started making a list of some of the things I think we need to do. One of the first things is to schedule and take a basic first aid class. It might not be enough for a major disaster, but it is a start. I don’t think we need to become combat medics, but advanced first aid in a disaster situation would be nice. I think I will talk to Owen about setting up another pool party with his family. We can talk to Donna about advanced first aid then.”
“Ok. What else do we need to do?”
“One of the items I kept seeing was something called a ‘bug-out bag’. I don’t think I want to prepare for the sudden collapse of civilization like many preppers do. I do want to put something together in case we have to leave our house in a hurry because of some disaster. One of the things I might ask you to do is copy all the paperwork we have lying around our offices. It would be nice to have copies somewhere else besides here in case of fire.“
“I can do that. We have a high-speed copier which can email us a jpeg instead of making an actual copy. I will jpeg everything and we can either store them online or create multiple small flash drives or cards with the copies. The hardest thing will be to keep the drives in synch once we scatter them around.”
Mark thought for a moment before saying, “I’ll look into methods to try to keep everything up to date. I think there are several applications out there we can use to help us out.”
“What else do we need to do?” Kelly wondered.
“After making copies of our paperwork and starting our first aid training, I would like to create some actual bug-out bags with extra clothes, personal items, playing cards, and cash. Nothing fancy, but something we could grab if we needed to leave in a hurry because of some disaster. Maybe get some strong waterproof bags. They need to hold enough to last two or more days at a hotel or at one of our parent’s houses without having to go to the store. I’ve found several lists for bug-out bags I want to look over and merge. I will let you know when I am done and we can start putting the bags together. I also want to create a shopping list of food which is easy to fix and make sure we always have about seven days’ worth on hand. I’m worried something big will happen and we may have to go a few days without being able to go to a store.”
“What do you think will happen that makes us not able to go to the store?” Kelly asked.
“Just thinking about some disasters that have happened and projecting them out to be larger than they were. What do you think would have happened to our grocery stores if 9-11 had taken place in multiple cities? I think the whole country would have stopped and after a day or so, our stores would have been emptied. Or what do you think would have happened if Hurricane Katrina had wiped out Miami, hit New Orleans and turned east and flooded Atlanta? How many loaves of bread would you be able to find if half the Southeast lay in ruins? There seems to be so many things that might happen or could have been a little worse which would keep us from leaving our house for a few days. I know they are a little more prepared up north for extended disasters and can usually go several days to weeks during winter storms. Here, we don’t even think about it. About the only thing that happen around here are tornados an
d they either wipe out your house or not. Even then, the area of destruction if usually small compared to a major hurricane or snow storm. We should be prepared for something that locks us in place for few days.”
“Ok, Ok. I get your point,” Kelly said. “What do you need me to do besides copy all our important paperwork?”
“Nothing now. I’m going to go over this in the next week and visualize what we would need to survive three days being cut off and then seven days being cut off. I think I will end up buying some camping supplies we can use for disasters or when we start working on the farm and want to stay overnight. Hell, if we are planning on living after a collapse of society, we might want to practice by spending our vacations camping somewhere. We need to get used to roughing it little by little just like everything else we plan to do.”
“Ok, Daniel Boone. You do your visualization exercise and make your lists and I’ll do what we need to do in order to get ready for a disaster,” Kelly teased Mark.
“Ha. Ha,” Mark laughed back. “I know one of the things we need to do is make a complete house-hold search and find out what we have scattered around here. I don’t want to buy anything if we already have twelve of them scattered around or hidden in some closet somewhere.”
“Good idea. Why don’t we divide the house up and over the next few days each of us can make an inventory of what we find? Who knows, it might surprise us.”
“Let’s go a step further and use the opportunity to figure out what stuff we have lying around here we can also get rid of. I know the upstairs closet is full of crap we haven’t used in years. We probably have two dozen duffel bags crammed into various closets.” Mark was referring to the fact whenever they traveled they always bought so much stuff they had to buy additional duffel bags to get it back home. Over the years, they had amassed quite a collection of spare duffel bags since they always forgot to take extras with them.
“Ok. I’ll take the kitchen, girl’s rooms, upstairs closets, and my part of the upstairs and you take the garage, living room, den, downstairs closets and your part of the upstairs. You do the bathrooms down here and I’ll do the girl’s and guest bathrooms upstairs. You take the media room and I’ll take the game room.”
“Deal,” Mark said.
“Anything else we need to do?” Kelly asked.
“Not much now. I still have a lot of work to do on my part, but this should keep us busy for several weeks. I still need to go over plans for scenarios. You can put together a menu we could cook if we were without power and water for three days and then bump it up to seven days. I eventually want to go as long as two weeks. I think anything more than two weeks would be too complex and costly given we are trying to put together our farm and prepare for a total collapse. We do need to make sure the food we put aside for disasters is something we eat on a regular basis. Also, we need to rotate the extra in and out of our regular meals to keep it fresh. When we go to the store the next month or two we need to buy two of everything so we always have a spare. An example would be two tubes of toothpaste or sticks of deodorant when we run out instead of just one. We still need to buy another whenever we use up one of the tubes or sticks. We should always have enough on hand to cover the length of our planning.”
“How would I even guess at the amount of toilet paper or tissues we would use?” Kelly asked.
“One of the tips I learned was to write the date you opened something and you can track how long it took to use it up. So when we open a new package of toilet paper make a note of the date. When it is empty, we put how long it took to use up into a spreadsheet and keep a running average. We have to adjust for if anyone in the house is sick and uses more than normal, but overall it is a good place to start.”
“I can do that,” Kelly said. “I have been trying to figure out how to plan for living on the farm and not going to the grocery store all the time. This would go with me trying to keep track of what we eat and how much we eat. I will start creating a ‘master’ list of food and other essentials so I know how much to stock up on each year.”
“Ok. I’m beat. Why don’t we take a break from all this doom and gloom planning and head down for a glass of wine before going to bed. This stuff is giving me a headache.”
Chapter 13
Wednesday came around and Mark was ready to take a break from the doom and gloom of disaster planning and go see Kelly’s grandmother. Mark and Kelly both called in sick and after dropping the kids off at school they started the ninety minute drive to Madill. While driving to Madill, both thought about the conversation they had with his parents yesterday about the need to pick up the kids after school. Mark’s parents were delighted about taking care of the kids. They had been feeling “left out” as their time with the grandkids had dropped when Mark and Kelly decided to act like real parents and raise their own kids. The Turners both knew someday soon they would have to tell both sets of parents their concerns and plans for the future. They didn’t know how to tell them yet without sounding like alarmists. After their discussion yesterday, both Mark and Kelly also knew they would have to start taking their parents’ needs into account as well. They felt like they couldn’t plan a future that protected them from the meltdown, but left everyone else in their family on their own to face what was coming. This left them a little on edge as they did not know how to plan the future for a group of people without telling them what they were planning. Mark even made a comment he didn’t even know who all they should plan for. He didn’t want to think about any of his family members living under bridges and starving while he had a roof over his head and food on his table. They both knew they couldn’t solve this problem today, but it did not prevent them from thinking about it all the way to Kelly’s grandmother’s house.
The short trip went smoothly and Kelly started crying as soon as she saw her grandmother. It had been several years since they had bothered coming up here to see her. Kelly instantly knew not seeing her regularly had been a major mistake on her part. She had always been close to her grandparents and did a good job keeping in touch with them throughout college and the first years of marriage with Mark. It wasn’t until Dakota was born and Kelly became “indispensable” at work she stopped making a monthly trip up to Madill. Soon she stopped calling them to see how things were going. Like Mark said earlier, they had gotten so self-involved they had shut out everyone in their lives they didn’t see as part of their plan to conquer the world. The tears came heavier as Kelly realized how much she missed her granddad and how she should have taken the time to visit him more often before he died. They spent more time eating out some nights, than it would have taken to drive to Madill to spend time visiting him and showing they still cared before he died.
Once they got in Ellen’s little room, Kelly and Ellen talked and talked for hours. Mark sat there and listened and enjoyed the conversation. Most people who knew the old Mark would have thought it would have been a very boring day for him listening to the two of them chatter away. The new Mark now realized how much family meant and enjoyed the day. Deep down Mark wished he had the same type of relationship with his grandparents or even parents. He listened to them recall the events of the past and he wanted to build the same type of relationship in the future with all the members of his family. He grew up resenting his dad and granddad for trying to make him settle for a “small” life instead of the grand one he had dreamed about. Parents and grandparents were always out of touch with how he thought he wanted to live and. He also wanted more than just a job and small family like they had. He wanted a big job with fancy cars, big houses, and expensive things. Like many young people, he didn’t know what he was asking for at the time. His parents’ lives were the ones they should have been living the entire time.
Around lunch, Mark interjected himself into the conversation by stating everyone must be hungry. Why didn’t they go to the little café they went to the last time and get some lunch? While they ate, Mark looked at Ellen and said, “When’s the last time you ate here? I thou
ght I remember you once saying this was your favorite place to eat.”
“This was my and Pa’s special place. We didn’t eat out much, but on birthdays, anniversaries and such we came here. This place brings back a lot of memories,” she said with a far-away look on her face.
After a few minutes, Ellen looked at Kelly and said, “You know the farm is just up the road.”
“I remember,” said Kelly. “Mom told me you wanted to sell the farm, but wanted it to stay in the family. She said you approached everyone but no one wanted it.”
“Well, your mom got a few things wrong. I don’t want to sell the farm. I want to give it away.”
Kelly and Mark were surprised at this remark. “Give it away?”
“Yes. I talked to all my kids and most of my grandkids about taking the place over. No one wanted to be responsible for the place or they couldn’t afford to pay the back taxes on it. I don’t think anyone of them wanted to live here and do something with the place other than use the land to hunt on. I didn’t think you two would want to leave the city for a farm. I knew Mark didn’t hunt, so I never talked to you about taking the place over. I was hoping someone would want to live here and build the farm back to where it used be. A crazy, old women’s dream, I guess.”
“What back taxes?” Kelly interrupted.
“Well, I never expected to live to be this old. I only have the social security and the little Bill Holland pays me for using one of the fields to cut hay from. Everything has gone up in price. With the government cutting our social security a few years ago, I didn’t have the money to pay all of those taxes on the place. If it wasn’t for Billy I would have lost the place two years ago.”
“Billy?”
“Yes. Bill’s son. Billy is the county lawyer and he has refused to take away small family farms for back taxes. A lot of us senior citizens owe the man a lot because he kept a lot of people in their houses when everyone else would have thrown us out. He’s taken a lot of grief over the years. I guess it is too much for him because he’s leaving the county next month for some bigger job in Oklahoma City. I think he is tired of fighting the younger people running the county who wouldn’t wait a heartbeat before throwing us off our land for back taxes. I think they believe they could resell the land to some big developer and make a lot of money for the county after all those new people move in.”
