Emergency preparedness is important

Or: But it’s a little different if you’re pretty far away from the disaster area

Every now and then, we all have to deal with impending natural disasters. A particularly vicious one has been in the news lately, flying at my state like a ninja star from the sky.

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The danger zone is actually catastrophically dangerous, and this post is not about that zone. This is about the blue X.

Lucky for us, we live hundreds of miles inland, far outside of the danger zone. The biggest dangers for us are power outages or trees falling down.*
*We live in a place filled with the tallest, bendiest, most terrifying pine trees known to man. They exist exclusively to make everyone panic when the wind blows.

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I did not grow up in hurricane country.

Even this far away from the coast, though, disaster preparations have been in full swing. Grocery stores have been out of eggs, milk* and bottled water for a week.
*For emergency french toast parties, obviously.

This is not the first weather-related emergency preparation event that my husband and I have gone through, however. Many years ago*, I volunteered for the task of preparing our home for a possible power outage.
*Like maybe 2 and a half, tops. 

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Such trust!

And I did. I made a list. I went shopping. Supplies were obtained and stocked in the house.

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I also made sure to unpack the most important supplies before my husband got home.

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Can’t you just feel the overwhelming confidence?

This is a possibly accurate recreation of this power outage in our home. Perhaps you, too, can be as prepared in future circumstances:

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No one knows if you’re utilizing ladylike eating habits when the power goes out.

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You will notice that we clearly already owned a flashlight. Boy Scouts would envy this level of preparation.

I should probably help clarify things by illustrating what was on the floor behind me:

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***Supplies***

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This is an accurate representation of how I do not blink while staring into flashlights.

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For those of you who are lost, this provides important context.

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It is important not to throw ice cream in the dark.

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Completely worth it.

So next time you’re picking up your emergency supplies, and you’re frustrated by all the things the store is already sold out of…consider what we learned from Jurassic Park: Ice cream is rarely sold out, tastes delicious when melting, and is actually best enjoyed during power outages.

Spare no expense when it comes to emergency supplies, you guys.

All fun and games aside, Hurricane Florence has wrecked real havoc on the homes and lives of so many people. You can be awesome and help those in need by giving to charities like All Hands and Hearts, or the Red Cross. I joke because my city regularly panics over even the most basic weather situations, but hurricanes really are no joke. It’s more important than ever to help our fellow humans out right now.

Please do not kill my spiders

Or: It is very strange to have adult responsibilities

We are very proud of our home. It’s a very grown-up thing to have. It keeps the rain off of our heads, and gives us a place to contain stinky ghosts and make marshmallows.

Actual size

Mom and Dad are so proud of my portrait drawing skills.

It also keeps us from living outside. This is very important, because I live in a place that’s full of bugs.* From March to November, the ground crawls and squirms. Creepy-crawlies hang from the trees and beetles zip through the air at inconvenient knee-level.
*Not Australia, though. Australians – how are you even still alive?

Ew bugs

This does not include the gnats waiting for you to inhale them.

And they all want to come inside.

Run away!

They are also much faster than I am.

But you know what? They can’t. Because our house has a secret force field.

Safe and sound

My new doodling apparatus has a BLUE option!

Want to know our secret?

Household spider

I call him Margarine. I do not need to explain myself to you.

It has taken me years to adjust to this strange forcefield. Spiders and I are, of course, natural enemies. Recently, however. our force field was endangered, because of an interloper and adult responsibilities.

You see, we have a mouse. Not a fluffy adorable pet mouse, who we would cuddle and love. A wall mouse. A mouse that scritches and scratches in our bedroom walls and wakes me from my beloved sleep. A mouse who might chew on our wires and throw our home into a electricity-free dystopia.

I forget to draw feet sometimes

All wall mice obviously only have 3 feet for manueverability

So I had to call another adult* to come help us deal with the mouse in the walls.
*Because my husband is aware that given the slightest opportunity, I would adopt this wall mouse and attempt to turn him into a pet mouse.

Here in our town,* the adult responsible for saving our precious electricity is also the adult responsible for keeping homes bug free. He is the Exterminator.** Which also means that he expected to spray our house for any other pests. He proclaimed the wonderful bargain we would receive: free pest control thrown in with mouse retrieval. He listed all the pests that would never be able to infest our home or darken our doorstep.
*And also pretty much every other town ever.
**This must be said with appropriate gravitas, obviously.

But even with the promise of science and technology protecting me, I found myself making a request I never expected to make:

This is a thing I actually said

I actually said these words out loud to another grown human.

The Exterminator was perplexed. He asked me if I was sure. He showed me where he could spray to chase the spiders away.*
*Chase them away from being alive. I’m on to his euphemisms. 

Exterminating no spiders

He also looked extremely skeptical.

But I’ve been brainwashed, somehow, by the guardians of our grown-up house. I couldn’t let this man destroy our forcefield.

Guys…I couldn’t let him kill the spiders.

All the spiders

There are so many. I may regret this.

And now I’m a little afraid I’ve lost my mind. But if you come to visit, please do not kill our spiders. I worked very hard* to defend them.
*Meaning I talked to another adult for like, 5 minutes. Like I said: very hard.