Weekend Assignment #362: Two Cinnamon Candles and Clear Plastic Tape

For Weekend Assignment #362: Emergency! I asked:

Weekend Assignment #362: Emergency!

How prepared are you for emergency situations? Do you know how to do CPR? Does your home or business have an evacuation plan or do fire drills? Do you have a generator, duct tape, candles, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, sandbags or other emergency supplies on hand? Why or why not?

Extra Credit: Does your smoke detector (if you have one) have fresh batteries in it?

Listen, it's a darn good thing we don't live near an ocean, in a tornado alley or war zone, or near a major fault line.  We are so unprepared for emergencies that I feel a little guilty as I admit to you the Awful Truth: our entire stash of emergency supplies consists of two cinnamon and nutmeg votive candles and two partially used boxes of matches. I was going to say that at least we have duct tape, but John corrected me. What we actually have is several rolls of clear plastic tape, suitable for mailing packages. I mentioned this accounting of our disaster preparation inventory to John: two candles and clear plastic tape. "We're ready!" John asserted ironically.

Around here, there's a very slight chance of a minor earthquake, but I've never felt one, anywhere. Not a real one, anyway. In the early 1970s, I once reported a possible earthquake in Manlius NY to a local tv station. The station's news anchor called me back to explain that what actually shook the ground that day was an excess of explosives used in doing some blasting at nearly Green Lakes State Park. I never found out what the blasting was for.

Tornadoes are possible in Tucson, but again, I've never seen one, only dust devils. Obviously we get no blizzards around here. The big danger, which might sound counterintuitive for a desert city, is flooding. Anyone who builds on a "500 year floodplain" around here is asking for trouble. Up in the mountains there is also the danger of wildfire, but in the city, not so much.

I guess John and I aren't very big on preparing for low-probability disasters. That's probably foolish of us. In fact, I'm tempted to either put batteries in our smoke detector for the first time in a decade, or replace it with a better one. It used to drive us crazy, beeping whenever we cooked or took a shower. But what the heck: we have a working alarm system. It consists of two dogs, Cayenne and Pepper. Day and night, they are on alert, protecting us from all dangers. Well, maybe not all dangers, but at least from cats in the alleyway!

Karen