There’s no need to prepare for doomsday. Probably.
There’s no need to prepare for doomsday. Probably.
P erhaps you’ve noticed that many governments are advising their citizens to set aside some canned goods and water, sufficient to get them through three days or so. You want to say, “Great idea! Be prepared, as we learned in Scouts. I’ll set aside some Spam and crackers. But . . . any particular reason?”
Government: “No, no, no reason, just prudence. One never knows! Good to have some mac and cheese on hand, right? Some protein bars! Also maybe iodine pills in case of radiation exposure. And peanuts! Peanuts are good. Iodine-dusted peanuts, if you can find them.”
English authorities said the country’s new “Be Ready” campaign is intended to help people through a bad patch in case extreme weather plays havoc — nothing more. Also, keep in mind, a can opener can be used as a weapon to open the throat of an invader. Oh, and we’re raising the age at which retired military personnel can be recalled from 55 to 65, but that isn’t in reaction to anything at all. Japan has issued the same recommendations, probably saying it’s in case there’s a tsunami and certainly not a surprise attack by China that knocks them out in the event of a fast-moving Taiwan gambit.
Many people on social media have also noted news of the FORTRESS America project, intended to make all military facilities self-reliant for 90 days should local utilities fail. You nod and say, “Good idea, and also, why haven’t you done this before, and also, why now?” Then you learn it’s part of PROJECT HARDINATE or OPERATION SECURE TURGIDITY or something that was started a few years ago. In short, there’s probably nothing to it. There’s probably no intel about intricate utility-killing plots using sleeper cells infiltrated during Biden-era border laxity. There probably isn’t anything imminent. If there was, they would have head-faked us with some more declassified UFO footage.
I’ve been prepped since the Twin Towers fell. I put together a bug-out box after 9/11, figuring that if something bad happened, we would light out for the territories, head to North Dakota where my family had a gas station. Dad would be guarding the tanks with one of his many, many rifles. I bought some buckets of shelf-stable food. Civilization might crack and chaos rule the land, but we were going to dine like kings on beef stroganoff every night for a solid month. Twenty-five-year shelf life, I thought, in 2001. We’re good.
Well, there’s about four months left on that stuff. Best go to the store and set aside some provisions for the nightmarish 72 hours, after which everything will be hunky and/or dory, I guess. I decided to splurge: If the end is near, you don’t want to scrimp. The really good mac and cheese, the bespoke canned chili with serrano peppers, lots of pasta . . . which would require boiled water. What if the utilities don’t work? Best pick up a spare propane grill and some extra canisters, a bowie knife, a wind-up emergency radio, batteries, wet wipes, matches, and a box into which I can put all the items, so it’ll be easy to hand it all over to the guy who shows up with six other guys carrying guns.
To all this ambient nervousness, add to this two strains of modern discourse: The left believes Trump and Musk are going to steal the election by using ICE and Starlink, and the right is poring over plans by vaguely named NGOs to do a Color Revolution Thing and have governors suspend the Constitution. More or less.
My personal belief is that none of this is going to happen. All of these tremulous motifs in the zeitgeist will trail off into nothingness, replaced by ones that are similar but different. It’s possible the government told everyone to have three days’ food on hand because 37 percent of the younger generation has nothing but ketchup and a brick of ramen on hand, and if there’s a momentary hiccup in the way things work, people will be staring at their phones, stabbing the DoorDash app and wondering why nothing’s loading, and because they have Anxiety, it is ableist to expect them to boil water.
Best-case scenario: I use that beef stroganoff. It’ll expire February 28, at which point I’m sure it becomes inedible overnight. Just my luck if everything goes south March 1.