I’m a bit perplexed that anyone could have had the experience of standing in line for rationed toilet paper (in the classic Soviet model) and not learned a lesson that would preclude them from getting caught up in another round of rationing. But, people are idiots. There’s such a strong normalcy bias that “oh, that’ll never happen” even though it just freakin’ happened. Thats not willful ignorance, it’s just genuine shorsightedness (which is a polite term for ‘stupidity’). I can’t say that I’ve accounted for 100% of my anticipated needs but I’m so far ahead of the general population that if some sort of rationing did kick in, or anothe shortage reared its head, I’d probably not even notice.
——————–
About five weeks until the election. Part of me has that same morbid, detached fascination that exists when you watch a horrific car accident on video…you know something terrible is about to occur, is occurring, but you kinda want to see it happen.
I used to have a friend who believed that we should vote Communists into office so we could just skip the foreplay and get the war started.Definitely an interesting outlook.
I disagree. I’m the most optimistic survivalist that youre ever going to meet. I mean that in the sense that my ‘perfect apocalypse’ is the one that doesn’t happen. If I die peacefully, warm, and well fed with a basement full of food,ammo, and fuel that was never needed…..I call it a triumph. If you really have a secret desire to live out the Mad Max lifestyle with your gear and your buddies go live in Somalia, Afghanistan, or Detroit. You can LARP Mad Max all day long in those environs and you may find that it isn’t the glorious rugged-individualist fantasy camp that you thought it was.
Why would I want to spend a single day having to crap into a plastic bucket, eat freeze drieds, shoot looters, sleep under a poncho, and drink bleach-flavored water if I didn’t have to?
But just because you don’t want to do something doesn’t mean you’re not going to have to. So…big basement of goodies.
I’ve read a few “war gaming” articles about the next US election and if (big if) they are to be believed, America will be living out that Chinese curse about interesting times for a while.
Rationing in the UK isn’t a surprise. They aren’t bright enough to stockpile or come up with an alternative. For example, while I do have some extra toilet paper (two is one and one is none), I also have a stash of sponges. Why? Because the Roman soldiers used sponges to clean themselves up then they washed the sponges out after use. And I also keep extra dishwashing soap around in case I can’t get and hand sanitizer. A little bottle and a small camp towel in my shoulder bag and I am good to go.
FYI, I am so stealing the meme you posted.
I bought a bolt on bidet/butt washer about the time this whole thing started. Way better hygiene. I use very little TP anymore. Sponges? I don’t think so.
Although there are a few morons out there lusting to play Rambo, I think most normal people just don’t like waiting for the “next shoe to drop”. The anticipation is what people hate, but if SHTF they are going to hate what’s going on a lot worse. Like you, I don’t want it to happen, but I am growing tired of the wait. I guess the old “shit or git off the pot” syndrome.
I’ve encountered more than a few people who want it to happen “Before I get too old to do something about it.”
If I’m too old to party when the Boogaloo happens (God forbid), I hope I’m at least coherent enough to take immense pleasure in kitting out some young idealistic freedom loving American kids with some really top tier gear I never got to use.
I think thats probably the best any survivalist can hope for…that when its time to shuffle off this plane of existence you endow some deserving young survivalist with your gear.
the perfect Apocalypse for me is to keel over from a heart attack after eating the last Italian sausage from Costco, just as a fire my last round of ammo.
Then I don’t leave anything for the scavengers except an empty gun and my cholesterol laden carcass, which could be a boon to any cannibals in the area.
FYI-scored 200 rounds of Herter’s 9mm at Cabelas for ~.22 cents a round today. They have a limit of 5 boxes.
the UK is a small island in contrast to its population. there have always been logistics problems with supply demands there
I showed a couple of (not super close) gun-buds my basement, hoping to cultivate an actual *preparedness* mindset in them (as opposed to just guns & ammo).
They said, “Dude – what is it that you think is going to happen?”
I said, “If you have learned nothing else from 2020, it should be that the world can change very radically overnight, in ways none of us anticipated”.
Normalcy bias is crazy-strong with them.
Some of my friends and family have occasionally wondered, out loud, about my tendency to always shop with an eye out for how well whatever I’m looking at will store. Reasonably long term? Does it need any special consideration in storing it? Etc…
Not quite full blown preparedness. (I don’t have enough room, or income, for much in the way of getting prepared, but I always try to make sure that I am at least somewhat reasonably prepared for any of the “normal” emergency situations that might come up.) I always have enough food on hand to feed me, and at least 3 or 4 other people, for a month or two. (It might get boring, but nobody will starve in that time.) WITHOUT having to crack open the large, 5 gallon bucket, of 25 year shelf life food.
As I tell people, that is there in case things get REALLY bad, but I would be perfectly happy if I never have to find out how the stuff will affect my digestive tract around day 3 of eating only from that. (Or, for that matter, how anyone downwind from me will feel about me continuing to eat from that bucket.)
a lady in alabama was just remarking to a reporter in ref to the hurricane how people usually get ready, fuel up, get groceries but this time they did nothing and now stand in lines around the corner. its like they regressed. i’m sure 99% of those covid hoarders used up their tp etc, and some even threw it away.
The UK is slightly smaller than Minnesota and has a population about 10x greater than Minnesota. No thanks. I’ll be staying in Wisconsin.
I spent 36 yrs in the Military and saw some nasty real-estate. We used to have a saying, “any fool can be uncomfortable in the field”. Ditto for the bad times at home. I hate to use the term Apocalypse as it is so over used. Perhaps the Irish term “the troubles” would work here? Still plan, prepare and maintain OPSEC. To have it and not need it is so much better than to need it and not have it. Just look at prepping as an insurance policy. TTFN
My wife has asked me from time to time, “Are you going to be disappointed if IT (SHTF) never happens?” This is like asking, “Are you going to be disappointed if we never have a large kitchen fire?” That is the reason I have four fire extinguishers placed around the home. I have noticed that she isn’t quite as skeptical now, given what has happened in 2020 so far, and the likely results of the November election. When I tell her now that war is coming, she remains silent.
If I do die without using the “beans, bullets and Band-aids” I have accumulated, I know that my son, in particular, will be glad to have them. It will be part of my legacy.
It’ll be a very sound legacy.
I’m reminded of a conversation my wife and I had a month or so before the Kung Flu started dominating the news. I had just returned from the store with a few giant packs of primo Charmin TP I’d gotten at basically 20% of normal price (my coupon game is pretty tight). She pointed to the stack of several identical packs in our paper goods closet and asked me if I thought we had enough. I just laughed and said something along the lines of “we have the space and it won’t go bad.” Fast forward three months to early “quasi-lockdown” (rural Oklahoma got off easy), we’d just given a few rolls to our neighbors who had shopped unsuccessfully all over the county, and she turns to me and says she’s glad she married an “over-planner”…the only things we panic-bought were fresh fruit and vegetables.
For me, all this nonsense has been a blessing in that it’s converted her 110% to the cause. She tolerated my paranoia before because she’s a good woman, but nowadays when I come home with another doodad, pile of Jerry cans or half-case of ammo, instead of the traditional “smile and eye roll” combo, I get a “nice, was that all they had?” Now she’s all about having a deep pantry, and is drawing up a massive expansion of the garden in the hopes of completing it before Anklebiter #2 arrives in the spring. Feels good to be justified and have my better half on board.
As far as politics (by other means) goes, my hope is that this round of “The Troubles” (as the commenter above and my Irish cousins put it) kicks off before my infant sons will be able to remember it, or it’s staved off until they’re grown men who I’ve been able to raise up and train to be able to take care of business. That second scenario is looking less and less likely the farther we get into 2020.
Sound like a fine woman! My wife has learned over the years, whenever she tells me that we “ran out of something”, the answer is, “Did you look in the basement? Look in the basement, sweetie. There’s more.”
Yep, now my wife is the one who wants to pick up extra on shopping trips. When I recently went over my ammo inventory with her, she didn’t even flinch. She said good thing you stocked up when you did. She is now waiting for her LTC to come in the mail after putting it off for years!!! 2020 may not be so bad after all!
I’ll chime in second, third, and fourth about my wife getting on board. She’s always been tolerant of a certain amount of prepping-we live in hurricane country after all. BUT. There was a point where being prudent crossed into being ‘a kook’.
Now though, that point moved FAR far toward ‘being prepared for – more -‘ Funny how actually living in a declared global pandemic, with the imposed isolation and shortages changes your idea of what is possible, probable, or likely. She sees the rioting. She sees the shortages. She sees me going out to the stash to meet almost every need for 6 months without blinking or stressing, and suddenly I’m a freaking prophet… and we’re shopping for ‘getaway from the city’ real estate.
This has been somewhat of a protracted test case. I’m working on filling in the gaps that this last six month lockdown has revealed. I’m very glad that we have any time at all, that I was able to avoid going deeply into my preps, that I’ve been able to resupply and even re-start building up reserves, that I had most of the major stuff covered, and that we’re moving forward and improving our position every day.
Use the time you have in whatever way helps you and yours get ready.
n
Most people that look forward to the apocalypse are deeply unhappy with their lives and they think it will be this great reset where that rich jerk down the street that has nicer things than him will have to come crawling on their hands and knees and beg to be taught how to rebuild a carburetor. The currently broke miserable prepper will all of a sudden not have to go into that job he hates and can instead hunt and fish all day and cook meals over a campfire while getting to open carry his budget AR that doesn’t really run. Its pure fantasy in underestimating the misery of a complete collapse (sure you might find a way to rarely take a hot shower but how about modern dentistry?) and in facing the reality that he could make his life better right now without SHTF.
As an “essential worker” (yay) I can tell you that the panic buying never really stopped in some areas.
Its very area dependant. The little grocery store in my home town (half an hour drive from local big city) was never cleaned out the way the ones in the big city were, though they did run short on quite a bit. And they recovered faster. While the grocery stores in the city are still not recovered.
But I work for a local Home Depot, and based on what I’m seeing at work? Yah, the panic buying never really stopped. It switched to a lower gear, but the general public is still snatching up whatever they can however they can when they see it on the shelves.
“Yah, the panic buying never really stopped. It switched to a lower gear, but the general public is still snatching up whatever they can however they can when they see it on the shelves.”
–which says to me that it’s not “panic” buying but “prudent” buying. We often talk about “panic” buying, and usually in a derogatory way in the prepping community. The idea, after all is to be calmly ready for what comes…
But people have priorities and their own threat assessment, and they are all different from mine and each other’s. So suddenly what was a very remote threat- that they’d have to stay in their home for a couple of months, became an imminent threat. They got a new set of priorities and directed their resources at those priorities.
Yeah it was sudden, and it’s gonna look different from how our buying looks. I buy a little at a time for a long time. I slowly built up stocks. Joe Lockdown doesn’t have time to do that. Once he became aware of the threat, he acted. Buying 3 or 6 months worth of stuff at a time might LOOK like a panicky move, if you’re used to buying a week at a time, every month, but really, Joe has a lot of catching up to do, and not much time.
I did my “last run” in March, when this looked like it could be REALLY bad. I didn’t “panic”, I executed my plan- which was to make one last pass thru the stores and top up what I could. Yes I bought WAY more onions and potatoes than normal, I thought they might have to last for months. Would my suddenly increased shopping list, and in much larger quantities than normal LOOK like panic? Only if you didn’t know that I was executing a well thought out and pre-existing plan.
I think we do a disservice to ourselves and the sudden converts to prepping when we talk about “panic” buying. It is perfectly rational to look in your cupboard and then suddenly want to have it filled instead of empty. Whatever the reasons, or timeline, the result is more people who are better prepared than they were. And if they make what we might consider to be sub-optimal choices based on haste and a lack of knowledge? The hasty buy gives them some breathing room to figure out a more considered strategy, and the time to learn more about what might be required in the future. Every one of them who now has some resources is less likely to be knocking at our doors, or attacking us out of desperation. Which is a win for us.
nick
Some of it is prudent buying. But I can usually spot those vs the panic buyers. The panic buyers are remarkably easy to spot if you’re looking.
When I watch customers load down their carts with bulk TP and then get pissed when the cashier points out the purchase limit sign (which is for 4 packs, and we sell big packs), yah no, its still panic buying.
And when the customer tells me “well, I barely use it and I have like 4 bottles already, but I’m afraid if I don’t buy it when I see it I won’t be able to get it next year” as they buy another 4 bottles, yah no, its still panic buying.
Its not as bad as it was, people are no longer clearing shelves as soon as the product comes in, and the number of people panic buying has reduced. But its still there.
I think my biggest issue with it is what it means for the mental state of the public, cause if the public is still running in panic mode, even if its now on a subconscious level, it means things could still get really bad really quick.