Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Whistle blowing

Last night I went to Relief Society to learn about earthquake preparedness. I am not remotely interested in any kind of preparedness. Never have been. Tom and I slog on from day to day. My idea of a perfect life is to live in a small apartment above a diner.

But Peggy and Jerry were giving the lesson and I love them as much as anybody I can think of. The table at the front of the room had some kind of cooking gizmo on it--that can cook an entire meal with 6 briquets. Said gizmo costs $150. A really snappy looking generator that looked like a Yamaha boom box costs $600. Or you could make up bags of ingredients for your favorite recipes and store those.

Don't forget to store food for your pet. (Why not eat your pet?)

I am the wrong personality type for this kind of planning. Why not buy three months worth of canned goods and a can opener? Also several pounds of chocolate chips.

Maybe a cyanide pill?

If you are at the grocery store during an earthquake, you should duck under your grocery cart.
You should have whistles all over your house and carry one in your purse so that if you're buried by debris, you can blow your whistle.

I brought home a free whistle. This afternoon I stood out on my balcony, eight floors up and blew it three times. There were people on the sidewalk below. Not one of them heard me.

We have a huge wooden black and white sign above our bed that reads, "room for rent." It's hanging on a tiny nail and will surely kill us during an earthquake. If it doesn't, I will drag myself into the windowless bathroom and wait for the rumbling to end.

Then I'm going to play the helpless old lady card.

My favorite part of the evening was when I made Jerry giggle like an eleven-year old boy just by sitting on the front row. The bishop leaned forward and said, "Louise, you're going to have to go to the principal's office."

Scrumptious cookies were served.





13 comments:

  1. My mother is going to love this one. She isn't into preparedness either and hopes to die at the first sign of an apocalyptic disaster. In her words, who wants to live through something like that only to have to clean up after it?!

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  2. What? No sprouted bean casserole made atop your sawdust paraffin oven?

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  3. I can hear this whole conversation in my head, and I am seriously laughing my can off right now.

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  4. I love you, Louise. Although we've never met, I think you're fabulous. My best days start with one of your posts at breakfast. Would it be wrong to assume that your huge wooden black and white sign does not include any vinyl lettering?

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  5. I hate preparedness lessons too. Or anything apocalyptic. If they start talking that way -even in sunday school or relief society I gather up my stuff and head for the door. Any situation where people are clutching their loved ones while the world crumbles around them is not what I want to hear about.

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  6. Why prepare? Wouldn't that take away the fun? (Do not tell my children I said that. I vote for powdered meal replacement and water storage.)

    I love earthquakes! They've followed me around where ever I move. They're how I know God is still watching me biff it. My first was 1971, I didn't get out of bed for early morning seminary that day. At first it was just a book, here and a book there dropping on my head. After my whole book collection joined me I looked out the window to watch the rolling waves of asphalt up and down the street...maybe if I stopped sinning...
    I live in Utah now.

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  7. I love this. I'm the stake food storage specialist and I'm not very good about getting apocalyptic about it, though I think people expect it. I try to work myself up sometimes, but I just can't. I'm doing a training in a few weeks. I plan to play the song "Old Mother Hubbard" and I don't know what else. Maybe I'll read your post to help lighten everyone up!

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  8. Let's see....I live in Japan, went to the grocery store last week, saw a sign on the apples assuring me the apples were picked BEFORE the nuclear leak and had been stored in a warehouse..this week, no apples. Wish I had some of those cans of dried apples from the cannery.

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  9. Do you ever get sick of being told you are SO FUNNY that it makes people snort and call their mother to laugh again? Just wondering.

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  10. TO SUSAN:
    Whoa. I am sorry I was flipant about disaster. Our hearts go out to you.
    Denece

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  11. You might be one of my favorite people.

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  12. "Why not eat your pet?" Hilarious! Gets me to thinking about which pet(s) to have.

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