Tag Archives: socialization

How it happens

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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.

All the people like us are ‘we’, and everyone else is ‘they’

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I do enjoy chatting with fellow survivalists. There are two or three that I communicate with back and forth in email and it’s always very satisfying and enjoyable. What makes it such a pleasure, other than us being, basically, on the same page is that it also helps to make me feel like I’m not unique and ‘strange’ or ‘out there’… there are people who think that my concerns and actions are perfectly reasonable. I like that feeling of…I dunno…validation?

It isn’t always that way, though. See, everyone has a different flavor of apocalypse. And everyone, when it comes to their particular flavor, is a remarkably fussy eater. For example, the Peak Oil guys are quick to attribute everything to Peak Oil (which, much like how Global Cooling morphed into Global Warming and is now simply the much more vague Climate Change, has undergone some brand retooling)… water wars? Its because Peak Oil makes transporting water too expensive. Food prices up? It’s because Peak Oil makes farming more expensive. Neighbors dog got into the chickens? Peak oil.

I shouldn’t give the Peak Oil guys too much grief….my own particular flavor of apocalypse is probably scoffed at by other parts of the survivalist demographic. But…my point is that it’s always nice when you have ‘out of the ordinary’ interests/beliefs/concerns to get to interact with other ‘like minded individuals’ so you don’t feel so isolated or alienated.

I was thinking about that today as I was restocking the rice containers in the kitchen. As of late I’ve been going through a lot of rice, mostly to use it up and also out of a renewed sense of thrift since there’s a new alternator sitting at the curb with an old car attached to it. Anyway, I was scooping out the last of a five-gallon bucket of rice and I was thinking what it must feel like to have that moment where you see the bottom of the barrel (literally) and think ‘thats it…we’re outta food’.

Of course, in my case that just means opening up another five-gallon pail. But how many people keep multiple five-gallon buckets of food on-hand? For years? Not many, I’d wager. But when I encounter other people who do that sort of thing, I feel much more comfortable with myself. Go figure.

I’m relatively active on a bunch of discussion forums. Some as Commander Zero, some as other anonymous names, but I really enjoy reading other people’s experiences and ideas about preparedness. It really helps to lessen the feeling that I’m the only one who thinks this way and, therefore, somehow I’m abnormal or not quite right.

So…let’s ask an interesting question: not counting spouses or relatives, how many survivalists do you frequently interact with in real life.. not over the internet, not on discussion boards, but in genuine “Hey, you wanna go to the range/gun show/Mormon cannery/backapacking store?” fashion?

[yop_poll id=”9″]

 

Meeting folks

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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.

The folks you meet

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There’s always that question of ‘how do I meet other like-minded individuals to network with?’. I’m of the opinion that putting an ad in the back of American Survival Guide or on a forum is a last resort sort of thing. There’s too much risk of winding up auditioning a revolving door of whackos and nutjobs, all the while compromising PerSec.

I am firmly of the opinion that if you really want to meet folks, the best way is to observe and casually work up to broaching the subject with the new person. Today was a fairly good example….

My regular letter carrier (or as we used to call them, “mailman”) is on vacation. The little truck pulls up in front of the shop and a guy gets out. We make some small talk as he checks for my mail. I comment about how it sucks that he has this open-air cab and all he has to cool off is a fan. As I look in the vehicle two things jump out at me….the radio he has on the dashboard and a backapck on the floorboards. The backpack is a coyote, MOLLE-covered bag. “I like your bag”, says I. “Yeah, I got it from online from Botach. Its been a great bag, I can’t kill it.” Hmmm. We shop at some of the same places. I also notice the Sangean radio sitting on the dashboard isn’t one of the cheap models…this one has a few bells and whistles that would be of interest to folks like you and I.

So….shops at the same tactical gear places and appreciates the quality gear. So far, this sounds like it’s possible he’s on the same wavelength as me on a few things. Maybe next time I see him I’ll ask if he’s done any shooting lately…really? With what guns?….Ah, I have one of those too….etc, etc. Then after a while we do some more small talk about interests and soon you’re pretty confident about whether he’s on the same page as you. And that’s the point you decide if you want to pursue this further and bring them into your little circle of friends or not.

It takes a little time, yes. It’s not as fast as walking up to a strange and saying “Hey, you got an AR, some MRE’s, a stash of gold and a water purifier? How about that last election…who’d ya vote for? Cool..cool. Wanna see my bunker?”, but it’s also far less risky in terms of what information you put out there and, more importantly, what kind of impression you give other people. You tip your cards to the wrong person and they go and tell everyone back at work about the ‘crazy survivalist’ guy that is on their route….nobody needs that kinda headache.

Of course, this is just my opinion…maybe you’ve had a different and better experience doing it a different way. If so, I’d find it interesting to hear about it.

Random meeting

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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.