I
want an apocalypse wall.
(Ok,
might need to backtrack a bit.)
My
father has started a row of shelves in his basement. Nothing too
huge or fancy. Just a place to store all those extras that don’t
really fit into a particular closet in bulk sizes. Laundry detergent,
garbage bags and paper towels as thoughts provide a good idea
of what I mean.
Buy
an 8-pack of paper towels, and you find that not all of them fit
easily under the sink. Buy another 8-pack when you’re down to
the last two or three rolls and you need a spare shelf. Hence,
a couple of places set up in the basement.
Let’s
be careful here. I’m not discussing wandering into hoarding. Some
people buy their toilet paper in bulk packs of 36-rolls. Most
people do not stack up seven or eight packages of the 36-roll
packs in the corner of the living room.
What
impresses me about my father’s wall is that it’s all there. Add
in the few bottles of cleaning supplies, and you have a decent
backup run of the non-perishable items you’d be looking for in
an emergency if they suddenly were unavailable. We might even
call the work a bit of a Goldilocks-level supply. Not too many.
Not too few. Just the right amount, especially if the stores ran
out for a bit.
Upstairs,
my mother runs the kitchen in much the same way. If you were to
look around, you’d begin to notice a few specialty things that
aren’t readily available. Making stir fry? If you need bamboo
shoots, water chestnuts, oyster sauce or hoisin sauce, you’re
probably out of luck. But the basic pantry items? She’s got several
types of flour, along with both light and dark brown sugar. Pecans,
walnuts and almonds are all on hand. Mustard? Of course. Yellow,
spicy brown, country tyle, Dijon and I feel safe saying at least
one more.
The
thing is, considering those bamboo shoots as an example of what
you’ll find my parents potentially lacking, the items on hand
at their house are likely not too different than the items at
yours. They don’t use bamboo shoots. Why would they worry about
it? You might not use pecans or spicy brown mustard. What they
do use, they have.
Now
back to that apocalypse wall.
I
don’t truly mean creating an apocalypse wall because the end of
the world is nearing so stock up plenty of cans with expiration
dates years into the future. I mean something a bit less haphazard
than the storage at our house and a bit more knowing right where
it is organized like my father. For that concept, sure, apocalypse
is a bit strong.
Instead,
I want you to consider something else. If you were making a recipe
and had already started mixing things, what would it take for
you to be upset by a missing ingredient?
If
you told me we didn’t have cardamom or thyme, I’d probably pause
for less than a beat and grab the car keys. Should have checked
that, my bad. But running out of mayonnaise, a much more commonly
used item, would trigger more than a few curse words. (Seriously,
how do you run out of mayonnaise?)
And
it’s the great duality, isn’t it? I’m out because I use it, and
yet, I should be more aware of how much is left because I use
it.
Does
anyone need three dozen bottles of shampoo, seven gallons of laundry
detergent and ninety cans of assorted beans? I’m going to say
no. Some of you might hedge slightly and say probably not. Bit
of a difference between no and probably not, but fine. That said,
if you jump in the shower and find you’re out of shampoo… yeah…
those extra backup bottles make more and more sense.
I’m
going to have some bamboo shoots and water chestnuts on there
with our stocking of food items. Got a cashew chicken stir fry
that I make, along with a great fried rice. Like having them around
when the cravings hit. Probably a couple of extra rolls of paper
towels as well. I’ll cover us. You do you. Together, we should
be ready for any emergency.