How's come KO has'nt mentioned the "hide the tuna under the bed"

[Gogi]

game that government official wants everyone to play? My cat would love it! I guess another asinine idea from a Bush



administration official is'nt news anymore, there've been too many of them. Actually, I had the idea last week that



maybe, just maybe, stockpiling food in case the Bushies crash the economy would'nt be a half-bad idea. The Bushies

will probably end up killing more people than the bird flu! (Can somebody tell me how to move text up on the page? I'm always hitting the @#%%&*^@ enter key and moving text down.)

[gkhouston]

1. last thing first:

I use backspace to take out an unwanted carriage return if I've just hit enter. If I don't realize it until later, I use the mouse to select the empty space and delete it that way.

Storing food: putting by some shelf-stable food would not be a bad idea, IMHO, but learn how to store it (rotate stock, read dates on cans, desiccants and vacuum prolong the life of dry goods, etc.) and buy stuff you'll actually eat. Whether or not we get an H2H version of bird flu, we will get the current strains, probably sometime this year. Sooner or later, the poultry farms are going to be affected, there will be mass culling, and food prices will go up. That's the best-case scenario I'm seeing right now.

[Berry Cool]

2. I think perhaps Keith got stuck back on Howard Dean's hide-the-salami.

Anyway, ever since Katrina I've been thinking: maybe putting some stuff away in case of a disaster wouldn't be so bad. I just don't know where I'd put it all.

A few weeks ago, the city shut down the pipes in my building and left them off for 12 freaking hours. After having to call in late to work (because I couldn't even wash up) and then head down to the nearby supermarket just to haul home five gallons of bottled water by hand so I could wash and also water my thirsty cats, I was thinking about that again.

The Y2K people were not all tinfoil hatters. I think they were the first ones to realize that had there really been a disaster as the result of computers not being able to adjust to the year 2000, the government would not have been of much help to us. :scared:

[gkhouston]

8. "I just don't know where I'd put it all"

and that, I think, is where the "under the bed" part came from. 'Course people who are truly tight on space already have stuff under the bed. What about way up top of the kitchen cabinets, where the dust bunnies roam?

[RevCheesehead]

3. Aw, hell - you people obviously didn't have depression-era parents.

I stockpile everything - especially if it's on sale!

[Gogi]

4. My parents were born in 1929...

and Dad was in the migration to California. He remembers sleeping on the bare floor of a relative's house because they had sold all their furniture.

[RevCheesehead]

5. So did the stockpiling gene skip a generation?

Cause I got it, real bad. :hi:

[Berry Cool]

6. I had Depression-era parents, too

but my mother was never much of a stockpiler. I would say her primary psychological scar from those days was the memory of how meager the Christmases were. As a result, each Christmas we got showered with presents...affordable or not. And she never came home from shopping without something she had bought for us.

Deprivation does funny things to people. Some, it makes them want to save used string. Others, it makes 'em want to spend like a drunken sailor as soon as they get some money.

[RevCheesehead]

7. That's why I dread cleaning out Mom's office.

Because there ARE things like balls of used string. Not a job for the feint of heart. :scared:

[gkhouston]

10. can you take a friend?

Doesn't have to be someone who knew your Mom. You can always "explain" as you excavate. My parents moved to a much smaller house a decade ago, and sifting through their belongings before the move... :scared:

[WolverineDG]

11. Balls of string I can handle

It was the boxes of ammo & grenades (which thankfully were not live) that I couldn't handle when cleaning out Dad's house. :scared:

dg

[gkhouston]

12. wow, the scariest thing I had to deal with were

boxes of double-knit polyester. Hmm... maybe ammo would have been less frightening...

[Gogi]

15. I'm afraid my father is in the 'drunken sailor' category! eom

[gkhouston]

9. yeah, I did.

I'm just putting away more these days than I used to for hurricane season. And I'm doing it little by little now, because when something happens, if it happens, it will be the mother and father of all pre-hurricane grocery store runs. I wouldn't be surprised if the shelves get emptied the first time a poultry farm here takes a hit.

[Berry Cool]

13. This is so depressing.

It's like Stephen King's "The Stand." Let's see, we soon won't be able to eat the chickens because of bird flu. And we probably better stop eating the beef because of mad cow and because * no longer sees the need for quite so many beef inspectors as we used to have. So now we're supposed to hide tuna cans under the bed? Hello!?!? Has everyone forgotten mercury? :scared:

And yes, I AM cramped for space and NO, I do NOT have any room under my bed!

[RevCheesehead]

14. In my house, "under the bed" is cat territory.

I dare not. :scared: