HOW PREPARED DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

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Welcome to 1801!

Date: July 4, 2001: It has been 6 weeks since the nuclear war first started. New York was the first to go. As if that wasn't bad enough, a string of earthquakes started tearing apart the Pacific Rim. You're awake at 4:30AM. You are still tired and dirty - still trying to figure our where to get enough water to fill the bath tub (city services were lost after the last tremor). You haven't bathed in nearly two weeks, and you only have a little water left in two old milk containers that you and your family have been sipping off of for days. The weather is weird - so dark all the time. Worst of all, no one can say with certainty just when it will rain again. None of your neighbors have water either, and everyone is praying for rain and trying to setup rainbarrels. Everyone's patience is wearing thin.

You are hungrier than you have ever been in your life (all supplies to your town stopped coming in two weeks ago and you were in the habit of shopping for only a couple days at a time). You have already eaten everything in the kitchen pantry, including year-old oatmeal and a can of dog food left over that was meant for your pet golden retriever - Spunky. (Poor old Spunky, he has been gone for a week and with all the rumors around the neighborhood of people eating their pets, you only fear the worst). If only you had listened to your sister and planted a garden in the spring!

You haven't been to work in nearly a month. Your work as an accountant was almost over with anyway after Y2K hit. And now, with all the catastrophic events that have occurred around the country and the world - nuclear, biological and others - you knew that it would soon be a lost cause anyway. After all, since people are now fighting for their very survival, what do they need an accountant for anyway? Besides, after the electromagnetic pulse subsided, half of all vehicles wouldn't run anyway - there hasn't been any gasoline available for nearly a month - and what is now available is priced at $20/gallon! Who can afford that?

And then - there are the eruptions of urban and suburban warfare. When President Gore signed an executive order to mandate stage 4 of the Brady Law, you dutifully turned-in your only weapon. The only people with weapons now are criminals, gang members and the police - and the police have all but said that they are not capable of protecting anyone at any time. You are now on your own - left to protect and defend your family with mere kitchen utensils! The "bad times" as they are now being called, can be heard all around, every night. Sirens, gun fire, calls for help - they never cease. Even if you felt like sleeping, you couldn't. You are finding yourself praying for the first time in years - but with such paper-thin faith, you wonder if anyone is listening. Hope is fading. Suicide is now being considered.

How prepared are you?

-- watchin' the storm approach (be@ready.com), August 01, 1999

Answers

President GORE? Suicide is a certainty.

-- For (your@info.com), August 01, 1999.

July 4, 2001. It's been 6 weeks since the nuclear war started. Too bad about New York but as always, people survive. The earthquakes have killed about 1.5 million worldwide according to the news on my SW solar powered radio. It's been an interesting day. We had a tremblor here in South Carolina...messed up the gravity feed system that my neighbors and I set up last spring (2000). Got in a big arguement with one of the neighbors (friendly) at the community get-together last night. Seems he has a real big problem with having a wrestler for President but took exception when I brought up Reagen's background.

We haven't had a lot of social turmoil around here since we instituted the community patrols on horseback and armed of course. I have been doing well financially (using the barter system of course). Trading my nursing skills and vet skills for food and trade goods. My wife is earning her keep by taking care and training the horses for the community patrols and the plowing. Renewable resources, don't ya' know.

We did have a 'spot of trouble' last week. Seems the government is putting itself slowly back together. Man came by in a government jeep and demanded that we turn in all of our food, all of our guns and report to a internment camp just outside of Atlanta. Asked for a reason, 'the government needs your skills in other places worse than your community needs them'.

I guess that if that feller ever gets back to Washington, we might have a problem, but then again, he might just never get back.

Yeah, if he survives the increased radiation around Washington, he might be a problem. he didn't believe us that the new capital is in the mountains of Virginia as of yesterday.

Well, I gotta sleep now. Tomorrow is my turn running(?) the trot line for fish. Tomorrow night is my 8hours on the community patrol so I have to check my equipment tonight.

OH, yeah. Almost forgot. We have a new pastor coming in the morning to help the old one. Rev. Charley broke his hip trying to help us fix Carmen's roof. Fell over his own dog.

Yeah, all things considered, it could be a heck of a lot worse for all of us in this community. Who would have thought that a bunch of Joe 6-Packs, professional people and the entire contents of a bedroom community could pull together like we have? We each do what we are best at as our main contribution but we all get stuck with the jobs no one wants to do at some time or another. I never thought that 35 or 40 people could work together so well.

Robert Heinlein....."You can expect a person to do the obvious....provided all the alternatives are worse!"

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), August 01, 1999.


Good game-set-match Watchin' and Lobo!

-- Ct Vronsky (vronsky@anna.com), August 01, 1999.

Nuclear war with Russia????? It will never happen! Kruschev was smart enough to back off during the Cuba crisis, because he knew they cannot make it without food from the USA!!! It's as simple as that!

-- smitty (smitty@sandiego.com), August 01, 1999.

Both very good posts, and both well within the relm of possibilities.

peace, Dan

-- Dan G (thepcguru@mailcity.com), August 01, 1999.



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