Prepping - The Introductory Phase

Back to the present – or semi-present, the days starting to run together at this point.

Valentine’s day is kind of when we measure the “start point” of “Shit about to get real”. Recognizing that I am one who is very much deadline driven (and who works better at some things under strict and constant supervision, like a prisoner on a chain gang or a rat cornered and beaten into submission), I was assigned to “figure out what we need and go get it.”

I assume this was the assignment because “orchestrate world peace”, which would likely be considerably easier, was already taken.

The first issue related not only what we would need, but how much of it. I would submit that if you aren’t a family with a home economist somewhere in the mix, you’re like me and had no idea about quantities.

How many people does a can of green beans feed?

Those “servings” listed on the package are about right if everyone eating weighs 110 pounds. For the rest of us, that’s a “bite” or a “snack”.

When you have leftovers, what’s the cutoff between “keep for lunch” and “trash”?

A trip to Sam’s Club (which I DESPISE for any number of reasons and avoid if at all possible) was in order, if for no other reason than that the packages are bundled together and easier to carry in from the driveway than individual cans from the grocery store.

Here’s the good thing that I got out of that – a friend said “Download the Sam’s App”. Normally, I avoid this. My life is already ruled enough by my phone, and I don’t need one more app popping up and remotely nagging me to do something.

The amazing thing about this app, though, is that you can go through the store with your phone, bag your stuff as you shop (if you bring your bags from home) and scan the bar code. Then at the end, you just push “Pay”, it charges the credit card you have entered and out you go. I don’t know if things were starting to pick up there or if it was just a typical Thursday, but I do know that it saved me at least 45 minutes of standing in line.

I came home with a couple of weeks’ worth of groceries that didn’t need to be refrigerated and ought to be shelf stable for several months. Plus, since it was before the panic, I scored hand sanitizer (just one big bottle, that’s all we needed), liquid soap and bleach and all that other stuff that people are panicking over (except for meat – because we didn’t have that much freezer space) and toilet paper, which we’ve been ordering through Amazon for a couple of years already.

The problem with bringing home more than your normal purchases is you have to find a place to put all that stuff, which brings us to the next point – some folks do not live in a house big enough to hold all the toilet paper they are buying. Where on earth are you going to put it?

Anyhow, groceries not only take up a lot of space, but they are also heavy and unfortunately, do not unload themselves from the truck. That was enough prepping for a day or two.