go bag: FAIL

TRX
08-05-2009

Nothing in the forecast for last night. Nothing all week, in fact. At 0400 the wind came up, freight train noises, continuous lightning, rain. Had a whole string of tornados cruising by. Then the electricity went off.

We got out of bed and put our clothes on. I went to the shelf where we keep the emergency gear. Bag with clothing and toiletries, check. Spare CPAP machine in its fitted bag, check. Motorcycle tailbag (contains maps, some medical supplies, maps, etc.) - check. Equipment bag... full of programming manuals.

The bag's original use was to carry reference material between work and home; it's the perfect shape to hold large-format books. I'd needed to shuttle some material back and forth between home and a programming gig, and I'd dumped the equipment out and used it to carry books. Of course, the stuff has wandered off on its own, as such stuff inevitably does, so I spent a while with the flashlight hunting down the invertor, the spare cellphone charger, and other odds and ends that normally go in the bag, like spare credit cards, cash, and the .45.

Lesson learned: the bag does you no good if it doesn't have the proper stuff in it.

I'll buy another bag to use as an equipment bag, and return this one to its former use as a book bag.

I'd also bought some canned food and bottled water. That stuff was still in the spare bedroom, where I'd failed to even get it in a bag, much less in the bag's proper place. FAIL.

Well, it was a learning experience, and at least I had *some* of the stuff I needed ready to go. It's only been six months or so since I decided it would be a good idea to be prepared, and already I was ready to toss everything in the car, which beats the hell out of the original plan, which was "hide out in the hall closet until it blows over."

- Dave "suddenly found a secret cache of round tuits" W.