This morning we woke up to a crazy light show outside our apartment. Florida sure has some dramatic storms and this one was throwing a full-on temper-tantrum on our lawn.
Heavy thunder, freak lightening (a la strobe lights at a Britney Spears concert…. or so I imagine anyways) and torrential downpour aimed primarily at our bedroom window. This was around 5 am or so. V slept through the whole thing, to my surprise. M woke up briefly, uttered “Man, that’s loud…zzz..” and went back to sleep.
I lay awake until my alarm went off at 6:30, thinking that I am so not prepared for Hurricane season. I have no bottled water (except for the dead soliders around my side of the bed). I have no back-up baby anything. I have a few cans of Minestrone soup in the cupboard.
I suddenly had this vision of running out of fresh water and having to make formula with toilet water. No child of mine was going to drink a toilet bottle. I lay in bed muttering things to M like “We NEED supplies. Seriously M, we NEED them.” and “toilet water, no way!”.
When M called me later that day and announced that he and V were heading off to BJ’s (which is like Costco) and I practically yelled “GET WATER!!!!!!!” into the phone. Except I was at work, so I just said “Could you please pick up some water” in a well-modulated voice instead.
And then I had a flash-back to Girl Guide camp which, for my American readers out there, is the same as Girl Scouts except with less-gourmet cookies. Just plain vanilla and chocolate for us folks up North.
Anyways, we were given a wilderness survival kit at the beginning of camp. We were supposed to take it with us on all nature walks. I was fascinated. I vividly remember it containing a rain-slicker made out of a garbage-bag (with holes cut for arms and heads) and a package of raisins, which we were to regard as ‘sugar’ incase we got hypothermia from being out overnight in the cold, rainy, windy, spooky West Coast forest.
Again, I was fascinated by the idea of getting lost in the forest. Fascinated and scared at the same time.
One night after all of our Girl Guide campfire building and firewood collecting, all curled up in our bunkbeds, under the cover of my sleeping bag and using my flashlight, I emptied my survival kit and took a proper look at it all.
What it contained other than that garbage bag and those raisins, I couldn’t say…. I do know, however, that stale, illicit raisins eaten under a sleeping bag, on the top bunk in the dull glow of a flashlight are delicious…. And that I am now the proud owner of a lot of emergency bottled water…… and that I will seriously try to not drink illicitly under the cover of my duvet…
For Girl Guides of Canada, click here
For Girl Scouts of America, click here
For raisins, click here
One Lovely Atlantic Mama and family 