Backstory: I like rice, I like chicken, and I like chicken and rice. What I usually do is cut up a buncha chicken and cook it in some sort of teriyaki or other ‘Asian’ sauce. The stuff I really like comes in a glass bottle for about $4. I have a tough time finding it, so I figured I’d special order it at Walmart.

Me: How many of these to a case? :::Shows manager the bottle of sauce I want:::
Mgr: Six to a case. :::consults handheld digital device:::
Me: Okay, I’ll take ten cases.
Mgr: Ok. Got something going on?
Me: Really wanna know?
Mgr: Sure.
Me: Im one of those crazy survivalist types. I like to stock up. :::Said in a ‘maybe he’s joking, maybe he’s not way:::
Mgr: :::takes a step closer and looks around before speaking::: I’m LDS. We do alot of that, too. Smart.
Me: Ah, so you must know [name of couple that was operating Bishops Storehouse]
Mgr: Yeah, I went to school with their son.
Me: Oh, [name of son]…he runs a preparedness website now.

And the conversation continues as he taps his device to order the cases I want.

That’s how it happens, folks. That’s how you meet fellow LMI. No internet meet ups, no ads on Craigslist, no waving a Gadsen flag in the parking lot and seeing what kinda people it draws. Just a normal everyday transaction

To be fair, virtually every LDS/Mormon I have met has been on ‘the same page’ as me on the important things. That’s one of the reasons I like Mormons so much. (That, and Mormon chicks are almost always uniformly hot.) I would bet money that if you put a observant, tithing, lives-in-Utah Mormon in front of me I can tell you who he voted for, whether he likes to shoot, and whats in his basement. Sucker bet.

The local two-year college here (what we used to politely call a vo-tech back in the day) has a class on building ‘sustainable’ housing and other greenie nonsense. One of their projects was building tool shed tiny house as a project and then auctioning it off. Here’s the link to the failed auction. And heres a link the school’s attempt to pimp it. So the thing is sitting on a trailer in the parking lot of the school, and since I have never really gotten a close look at on of these things, I hopped up on the trailer and started looking through the glass in the door. After a few minutes a guy came by and and started looking as well.

He said he was curious too, and we got to chatting. He was saying how it would be a nice place to drop out in the hills somewhere because it would ‘not be easily noticed’. Hmmmm. Okay, the survivalist version of gaydar starts tracking….We start talking about the the relative size of the place and I comment that by staying below a certain square footage, it falls below the threshold at which the local zoning nazis start throwing their weight around. And he says, “Yeah, its kinda like the 80% lower of houses.”

Radar lock.

And then the conversation turns a few degrees in the preparedness direction and the next thing you know we’re chatting about all the fun ways to put this thing on top of a buried cargo container and blah, bah, blah.

And that’s how it happens. No secret handshakes, no hanky code, no mumbled sacred phrases, no subtle hand signals…. just shooting the breeze, tossing out a casual comment, and seeing what the response is.

Or maybe he just noticed the pop can thermos in my hand that said “Cmdr. 0” on it. (In my defense, someone gave me that…it’s not the sorta thing I’d have done on my own.)

By the way, the school seems to think that someone would have bid $30 grand for that gussied up tool shed. You could stuff it with hookers and cocaine and it still wouldn’t be worth thirty large. I’d give you five grand and you can keep the trailer. For thirty grand you couuld probably build a real cabin where you’re not crapping in composting toilet like some sort of overgrown tabby squatting in a litter box.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

“How do I meet up with other like-minded individuals?”

That’s a question that pops up from time to time. Trouble is, you don’t want to ‘out yourself’ to someone thinking that they are of like mind and then find out that they aren’t. You’ve then tipped your hand and now someone else is going to start their tongue wagging about that ‘survivalist guy’ who chatted him up in the elevator at work. When it comes to networking, it seems like being a survivalist is like being gay – you don’t want others to know who you are, but at the same time you cant meet others like yourself unless you are willing to risk tipping your hand.

I mention it because I just had one of those serendipitous meetings. Here’s how it unfolded:

Im at the post office standing in line to use the automated postal center (sort of a postal ATM for getting stamps and such.) I notice the older gentleman in front of me has a small radio on his belt. I can see the display and it appears this isn’t some sort of FRS radio but a Yaseu of some fashion. My curiosity is piqued and since I have nothing better to do standing in line I look more closely. He’s wearing jeans, a forest green button shirt, and light hiking boots. His belt is leather, but not heavy enough for a gun belt. I figured the radio was a work thing or somesuch, but its my experience that people into preparedness usually have some outward manifestations of it…usually in the way we dress or the crap we carry on our belts. Casually, I ask “Is that a little 2-meter radio”? He says “Yup.” And goes back to getting his postage. Not too talkative, I figure, so I continue waiting in line. When he’s done he turns to me and says “Are you a ham radio guy?” I say that, no, Im not but my wife is and that she’d probably like to have a little radio like that. He says he and his friends are in a group and have them ‘for emergencies and preparedness’. As you can imagine, the little light bulb went off in my head. No kidding, I say, I think we may both be kind of like-minded individuals in that regard. We make some very meaningless and vague small talk and I know exactly what’s happening here..we’re sizing each other up. Is the other guy really ‘one of us’? I said that it sounded like we had the same interests. I said that I had a few friends who were into the same things, buying & selling silver (he seemed to perk up a bit at that) and that I had a line for selling freezedrieds.  As the conversation winds down he gives me his name and number and says to call him sometime. He wishes me a happy 4th of July. I tell him Im planning on spending it at the range like I do every Patriots Day and Independence Day. He moves in closer (because there are a few other people who have come into the post office and are standing around) that he and his friends will spend it ‘training’ (his words) at an indoor range they have. He also told me of a forum that they keep, which I had to hunt down a bit because he misspoke the URL – BSOSCBlog.com

Interesting stuff. I think I may have run across a few of these guys at the Hamilton gun show a time or two.