- You eagerly wait for the next edition of the Emergency Essentials catalog to come in the mail.
- You kept the last 15 editions of the catalog even though they advertise the same things over and over again.
- 20,000 rounds of ammunition still doesn’t seem like enough.
- You know when you are down to 18,787 rounds
- You will drive to the store to buy a 5 pound bag of rice for dinner even though you have 300 pounds stored in buckets in your basement.
- You complain about your wife’s clothes cluttering the closet but you can barely walk in your basement due to shelves of food and supplies.
- You have busted your lip with a bucket opener while trying to open the damn things. Come on…admit it! Okay…I admit it….that particular sealed lid kicked my ass!
- You price compare a 50 pound bag of hard red wheat to a 45 pound bucket…and then spend more than 3 hours thinking about where you will put it.
- You actually know what a 3 Sisters Garden is.
- You have internally debated with yourself on whether or not you could eat your pet.
- You have thought about places to bury your mono vault.
- You no longer have time to look at all the cool prepping websites you have found while surfing the web.
- You scratch your head in curiosity and think WTF?! when you see preppers on TV.
- You know the silver content of your coins.
- You can name, off the top of your head, more than 4 companies that sell long-term food in #10 cans.
- You read the descriptions of each model of Berkey Water Filters at least 6 times before you purchased.
- You own a Berkey and you still read the descriptions.
- Deep down inside you always wonder if zombies are real…or at least wish they were.
Got any you want to add?
1. You fill up your “to go” bag at fast food restaurant with salt, sugar, and ketchup in case TSHTF.
2. You have more flashlights than the total number of rooms in your house.
3. When buying canned goods you look at expiration date and are willing to reach WAY to the back of the shelf to get the one that expires later than the others.
4. You buy gun magazines because of the awesome weapon on the cover only to find the content between the covers suck. There goes $5.00 down the drain.
5. You have watched RED DAWN at least 10 times. Come on – how many times really? Lost count?
Cool post!
Rourke
I’m guilty…on all counts!
What a great post! It actually scared me, as I can identify with 16 of the 18 points and 4 of 5 of Rourk’s points.
Prepping is a journey, not a destination.
prepperfortheworst.blogspot.com
http://www.myfox8.com/wghp-pg-faces-of-meth,0,1425347.photogallery
18. oh zombies are real… look at this link if you don’t think so
if the SHTF and these and or others turn to drugs to numb their minds and situation – when meth addicts are out causing mischief or otherwise searching for food, drugs, etc… tell me that these pictures don’t look like the stereotypical “zombie” that will be stumbling through your neighborhood at night looking for YOUR preps…
the before and after pictures right down to the gaunt face, the lifeless stare, with red festering sores all over their faces – it looks just like the makeup on the zombie tv shows.
hmmm…you may have a point!
When the power goes out you first listen for vehicle noise before doing anything else.
ooohh…good one!
I check it see if my cellphone works ( call time and temp). And yes I can identify with all the points.
Guilty as charged on all counts!
*- You can’t put your groceries in the trunk of the car because its already jammed full with emergency kits, first aid supplies, and fully-stocked BOBs.
*- You have emergency rations for your pets, and view your pets as potential emergency rations.
*- You know the news three days before it hits the mass media.
*- You have back-up plans for your back-up plans.
*- You’re convinced you’ve been exposed to so many chem-trails, you consider it a form of birth control.
*- You’ve ever repressed the urge to bleat “BAAAAAAAAAA” as your neighbor earnestly asks, “What war? Where?”
*- You’ve ever bought antibiotics for human use through a vet, or grains for human consumption through a feed store.
*- You’ve got more than one grain mill.
*- You’ve ever wondered how you might filter the used water from your washing machine to make it fit for human consumption.
*- You have a kerosene lamp in every room.
*- Your living room coffee table is actually a board with pretty cloth over it to disguise your food storage underneath.
*- Your box springs are Rubber Maid containers filled with rice and beans.
*- You save dryer lint to make fire starters.
*- Your most commonly-used fuel additive is ‘Stabil’, instead of ‘Gumout’.
*- You automatically choose the heavy duty flatbed cart upon entering Sam’s or Costco.
*- If you know the shelf life of tuna fish, but don’t know how long you’ve had an open jar of mayo in the refrigerator.
*- Your basement walls are insulated with crates of toilet paper, from floor to ceiling, all the way around.
*- While other people are saving money for new furniture, or vacations, you are desperately saving to get solar panels put on your house.
*- You were excited beyond all reason when they came out with cheddar cheese in a can.
*- You’ve ever served MREs at a dinner party.
*- You can engage in a spirited debate on chemical vs. sawdust toilets for hours on end.
*- You’ve ever considered digging an escape tunnel from your basement to the nearest stand of trees.
*- You know how to use a vacuum cleaner in reverse to filter air in your designated bio-chem attack safe room.
*- You’ve ever considered buying an above-ground pool for water storage purposes.
*- You know what things like ‘TSHTF’, ‘BOB’ and ‘TEOTWAWKI’ mean.
*- You have different grades of BOB’s.
*- You know the names, family histories, locations, and degree of readiness of over a thousand fellow doomers on the net… but you’ve never met your neighbors.
*- The best radio in the house is a wind-up.
*- You have better items in storage than you use every day.
*- When the SHTF, you would eat better than you eat now.
*- Your significant other gave you a sleeping bag rated at -15 degrees for Christmas… and you were moved beyond words.
*- You’ve sewn secret mini-BOBs into the bottom of your children’s school backpacks.
*- Local food pantries have come to depend on donations from your larder when you rotate stock in the spring and fall.
*- You’re still using up your Y2K supplies.
*- You have enough army surplus equipment to open a store.
*- The local army surplus store owner knows you by your first name.
*- You fill up when your gas tank is 3/4 full.
*- You call Rubber Maid for wholesale prices.
*- You have several cases of baby wipes, and your kids are all grown.
*- Bert from ‘Tremors’ is your favorite movie character.
*- You carry a pocket survival kit, a sturdy folding knife, a SureFire flashlight, and a small concealed handgun on you to church every Sunday.
*- You start panicking when you are down to 50 rolls of toilet paper.
*- You keep a small notebook to write down any edible plants you happen to see along the road.
*- You shop yard sales, store sales, and markdown racks for barter goods for ATSHTF.
*- You own a hand-operated clothes washer and a non-electric carpet sweeper.
*- You have at least two of every size of Dutch oven, and 20 bags of charcoal, although you have a gas grill.
*- You have rain barrels at each corner of your house, although you have a city water hookup, and a Big Berkey to purify the water.
*- You have sapphire lights, survival whistle, and a Swiss Army knife on every family member’s keychain.
*- The people in line at Costco’s ask you if you run a store or restaraunt.
*- You require a shovel to rotate all your preps properly.
*- You no longer go the the doctor’s because you can either fix it yourself, make it at home, or know and understand the Physicians Desk Reference better than he does, and can get the goods at the vet’s or pet store for MUCH less moolah anyway.
*- You know that a ‘GPS’ has nothing to do with the economy.
*- You track your preps on a computer spreadsheet for easy reordering, but have hardcopies in a 3-ring binder ‘just in case’.
*- You’ve thought about where the hordes can be stopped before entering town.
*- You start evaluating people according to ‘skill sets’.
*- You view the nearest conservation area as a potential grocery store if TSHTF.
*- You know all the ways out the building where you work.
*- You have enough pasta stockpiled in your basement to carbo-load all the runners in the New York City Marathon.
*- You know that you have 36 gallons of extra drinking water in the hot water tank and your 2 toilet tanks.
*- You know which bugs are edible.
*- You have a handpump on your well.
*- You have #10 cans of ‘stuff’ that the labels fell off of, but you won’t throw it out or open it because it ‘may be needed later’, even though you haven’t a clue as to the contents.
*- You know where the best defensive positions and lines of fire are on your property.
*- You’ve made a range card for your neighborhood.
*- Your toenail clipper is a K-BAR.
*- The Ranger Handbook is your favorite ‘self help’ book.
*- You’ve numbered the deer romping in the yard by their order of consumption.
*- You must move 50 cases of food for the plumber to get to that leaky pipe, but you have your own hand truck in the basement to do it.
*- You own more pairs of hiking boots than casual and dress shoes combined.
*- You have more 55gal blue water drums than family members.
*- Your UPS system has more than 6 Deep cycle batteries.
*- You have a backup generator for your backup generator, which is a backup for your solar system.
*- You go to McDonalds and ask for one order of fries with 25 packs of ketchup and mustard.
*- You have ever given SPAM as a serious gift.
*- You’ve had your eye out for a good deal for a stainless steel handgun to conceal in the bottom of the magazine rack next to the toliet.
*- You are single male over 40, but you still have an emergency childbirth kit, just in case you have to deal with that possibility.
*- You have two water heaters installed in your basement, but one is a dummy that’s been converted to hideaway safe.
*- You’ve made bugout cargo packs for your dogs.
*- You have a walking stick with all sorts of gadgets hidden inside.
*- Your koi pond is stocked with catfish.
*- As a stand-in scoutmaster, you taught your son’s troop to set mantraps and punji pits, and haven’t been asked to stand in since.
*- You’re on your fifth vaccum sealer, but you keep at least one of the worn out ones because you can still seal up plastic bags with it.
*- You haven’t bought dried fruit in years, but you buy fresh bananas, apples, peaches and pears by the case and have three dehydrators.
*- Your UPS man hates you because of all the cases of ammo he’s had to lug from his truck to your front door.
*- You have duplicates of all your electronics gear, solar panels and generator parts in your EMP-shielded fallout shelter.
*- You have set aside space for your live chickens in the fallout shelter.
*- When the power goes out in your neighborhood, all the neighbor’s kids come over to your place to watch TV on generator power.
*- You must open the door to your pantry very carefully for fear of a canned goods avalanche.
*- You have a ‘Volcano’, you know you can cook anything, and you cast evil glances at your neighbor’s annoying, yappy poodle, muttering “your day will come, hotdog” under your breath.
I think Squid has enough material now to start writing a book.
I think he does as well – get going!!!
Rourke
Be Prepared is the one who should be writing the book…wow! He listed some great ones!!
* You begin to look at and search for tools that are multi-purpose in order to save weight and space in your BOB.
*You start assessing your neighbors for preparedness shortcomings, and evaluating which cousins, work buddies, etc you might let in the door when they run from the city and show up at your doorstep
*you know that the ‘desperate woman with crying hungry baby’ at the door might be a ruse to get her thug boyfriend in to kill you and take your stuff (i.e.Katrina)
*when you drive home from work you think about how many alternate routes you could take to get home
*you can make candles, pressure can meat, make soap, spin, weave and reload ammo