September 10, 2006

dept. of personal overpreparedness

I have a certain fondness for preparedness of the "stash it and forget it" sort: the basement fallout shelter, the airplane seat that detaches to serve as a life vest, the sort of thing my pals over at Catastrophe occasionally monitor. It usually manifests itself more as admiration from afar than as actual preparedness of my own, aside from the odd fire extinguisher and first-aid kit around the house. But when I saw this at Costco for a very reasonable discount price, I knew I had to have one: the Vegetarian Bird-Flu Preparedness Bucket o' Tasty Abstractions! An enormous sealed plastic bucket full of just-add-water cook-and-serve meals--275 of them, all vegetarian, all with a projected shelf-life of 20 years. Ten different dishes, plus "whey milk." I love, in particular, that it includes "Ala King" (sic) and "Cacciatore." Nothing in particular à la king or cacciatore. Just the style. Naturally, its usability depends on having a big supply of clean water, but, you know, who ever heard of a disaster where clean water was a problem? Don't answer that.

Unrelatedly (I hope): the new issue of The Believer includes a short piece I wrote about three unusual games.

Posted by Douglas at September 10, 2006 7:24 PM | TrackBack
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