It’s time to take prepping seriously. As I write this, 22 May 2020, stores are mostly restocked post Corona madness. It has been a wild ride. It’s nice to not have to wonder if I can get toilet paper tomorrow morning. But this is going to happen again. I don’t know exactly when, but I know for certain it will happen again. You need to start preparing now to give your family the most comfortable life you can give them when the next media induced madness hits the shelves.
Prepping Is The Way
I’ve always been fond of preppers and the idea of prepping, but I never took any real steps to prep myself. I grew up way out in nowhere Wyoming, and we were pretty much always “prepped.” It was a two hour drive to the nearest big store, Walmart. It was thirty minutes (30 miles) to the nearest store of any kind. Normally my Mom would go to “town” about once a month, buy an entire pickup load of supplies, and restock our large freezer and large pantry. If any short term catastrophe happened, we’d be just fine for weeks. At least once every winter the electricity would go out for at least 3 days (longer in bad winters). We were prepared for that. That’s how I grew up.
The Average American Is A Moron These Days
I volunteered for the Army and they told me I had to live in North Carolina for a while. I was amused when news of a hurricane would be announced, and I’d go the grocery store and there would be no toilet paper or milk in the store. The first time I saw that I asked what had happened? A local told me that whenever there was a big storm coming, North Carolinians would rush to the store and buy all the milk, all the bread, and all the toilet paper. Other friends from Wyoming who lived elsewhere on the East Coast reported similar phenomena. We all had a good laugh at those “stupid Easterners” who thought they couldn’t live without toilet paper for three days.
Well now the stupid is thoroughly distributed throughout North America.
There Was No Real Problem, Just A Panic
News of Covid-19 had been bubbling for months. A few people were talking about it in December, more in January, and by February everyone was talking about it. But there was no real action being taken. Then suddenly, on March 13th (Friday the 13th), 99% of Americans decided at the same time to buy all the toilet paper they could carry. It was pandemonium for weeks. Some places had no TP, no canned foods, no meat, no milk, no eggs. Our Walmart always had fresh produce for some reason, but I heard a lot of places didn’t. There were stories of people coming from Colorado and buying up all our stuff because they had nothing in their stores.
The thing I’d really like to emphasize with this whole mess is that this was 100% media created. It was all panic. I’m not at all saying the virus isn’t real. I’m saying nothing happened to the toilet paper factories. Nothing happened to the roads. The trucks were all moving. The stores were all open and fully staffed. Goods disappeared from the shelves for weeks simply because the general population panicked and rushed to buy every scrap of toilet paper they could get their hands on. Leaving aside the fact that you really don’t need toilet paper in a crisis, that’s pretty crazy to think about. There was no real supply chain problem. It was just people panicking. Imagine how bad things would be if there was a real breakdown in the supply chain! What if the trucks weren’t rolling? What if the factories did shut down? What if the stores closed or were short staffed?
We Are NOT “In This Together”
Most parts of the country went for almost a month without basic goods simply because people panicked and hoarded. Heaven forbid a real natural or manmade disaster cuts off some of the major trade routes. Imagine how screwed we’d all be then. People talk about love and kindness and being nice, but I live in one of the friendliest places in the country and I saw neighbors fighting over toilet paper. Imagine what Americans who have never in their lives seen anything remotely resembling hardship will be willing to do to one another when they are hungry or one of their kids can’t get cough syrup. It’s going to get ugly.
Get Ready For Hell
I guarantee this will happen again. The tin pot wannabe dictators that refer to themselves as “governors” and “mayors” around this country can’t wait for another chance to be as important as they are right now. There are always viruses going around and the precedent has been set. When the next “novel” virus comes skipping down the road, they are going to try the same crap they tried this time, only they’ll try to ratchet it up a little more.
Start preparing your position now. Start getting your family ready for the next big panic when you walk into the store and the shelves are bare. America is going to see this much more frequently in the coming years.