And they go on to extol the virtues of their emergency food supply products that have a shelf life of 25 years, and taste just like they were prepared by a gourmet chef, all in the comfort of your fortified bomb shelter.
What idiots they think we all are. They continue their lecture to us 'future preppers:' "just because the world went to hell in an hand basket, that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy tasty meals."
If you spend even one dime on their products, you are dumber than a bag of hammers. Just take a second and think about what they are selling: comfort in the face of national chaos and destruction. What on earth else can they sell you? Bullet proof Faberge eggs? Lava-proof hammocks? Maybe designer gas masks, God knows you wouldn't want anyone to see you in one of those military issue gas masks, they are absolutely hideous, and mess up your hair when you wear them. Oooh, ick.
I have to hand it to Wise Food Storage, however. They have learned at the feet of P.T. Barnum well: there's a sucker born every minute (yes, I know he didn't actually say that, but the myth bolsters my point, please bear with me). There are always dummies out there who will buy anything that makes them feel more secure.
The nasty truth of how things will work out once the poop hits the fan is a far different future than these dopes who buy 25 years worth of food to put in their bomb shelter think.
When civilization breaks down, and the mobs take to the streets, these dopes can't rely on their "KEEP OUT" signs hung on their doors. Those doors will be kicked in by the mobs looking for food, weapons, ammunition, and anything else that you have. And the likelihood that these dopey preppers will be the ones eating their delicious Wise Food Storage products is almost zero. Whatever these idiots buy from Wise Food will almost certainly be consumed by someone they don't know. I can virtually guarantee it.
Preppers who think that they can buy some guns and fortify their property are not thinking things through. Yes, when the mobs come across the prepper, sure, this valiant survival expert might pick off a few of the mob. That will only alert the remaining 10,000 scumbags in the mob that there is something inside that fortification worth defending. This survival expert has to sleep at some point, and when that happens the mobs will pour in and that would be the end of the survival expert. So much for his survival skills.
Or even say that the brave survival expert stays awake forever and guns down every mob member he sees. Eventually he will run out of ammo. The mobs will not run out of scumbags. He will get overrun, and his yummy Wise Food Storage portions of Steak Diane, Beef Tips in wine sauce and Beef Wellington will be feeding the mob that just took everything he had, including his life.
But at least he had the security of knowing that he had 25 years worth of tasty food at hand. Too bad he probably never even ate a week's worth of it.
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20 comments:
You're mostly right, but a little extra food is good, maybe even a couple caches. I wouldn't want to be depending on 25 year old food, though.
Gorges: I'm "mostly" right?
I'm entirely right, Gorges. What good is some measly stash of food when mobs are breaking down your doors and killing you? When you're dead, you don't need food, am I right? I'm not sure you got my point.
I think I got your point, Fredd, I just felt it was a bit over-stated.
You do make the case for lots and lots of mines.
Rich Prepper: "Chumley, you may now serve the sweet and sour shrimp!"
Butler: "Very good, sir." BOOM BOOM BOOM
Rich Prepper: "Those pesky zombies, I told you to let them eat cake!"
Butler: "As you say"
Rich Prepper: "Tomorrow I want the table carved chateaubriand, with sides of horseradish sauce and Yorkshire puddings with gravy. Hand me that clacker for the claymores. I always forget to slide off that horseshoe safety before banging it three times."
BANG BANG BANG
Rich Prepper: "Before you retire for the evening, Chumley, be a dear and refill the foo-gas and stand-to before dawn."
LL: Claymores are nice (remember, read the front of the curved mine: THIS SIDE TOWARDS ENEMY). But eventually you run out of those, too. Rich Preppers are the folks that get ransacked first, since their larders are known far and wide to be stuffed to the rafters with chateaubriand, brie and Chardonnay. Mobs are known to have hankerin's (a Texas word) for all of that.
NOTE TO RICH PREPPERS: you had better pay Chumley extraordinarily well, because when all hell breaks loose the mobs at the doors that Chumley is expected to man will be very persistent in their efforts to sample your Chateaubriand, and a well paid (and armed) Chumley will buy you a day or two more than having nobody at the post. But that's it. In a week, you and Chumley are toast regardless.
Gorges: of course my point was overstated. That's what I do.
But when the world goes to hell in a handbasket, this little discussion may not seem overstated. Not at all.
NOTE TO LL: when the Apocalypse comes, contrary to the notions that those B-movie Hollywood directeors hold, it will not be a 'zombie apocalypse,' as much as we all would love to see one.
No, zombies will not be pounding at your door. When the poop hits the fan, the likelihood that anybody, zombie or otherwise pounds on your door is minimal. More likely, your door will be bashed in with the armor plated front end of a Ford F250 truck. "Smash and grab" will certainly be the order of the day. Polite knocking on doors will seem a quaint memory of the past.
Only the strong survive, Fredd - and even then, only if they're very lucky.
You're right Fredd. No need to prep. If it goes to hell, the best thing you can do is take yourself and your weapons into the hills and plan to live off the land. Staying in Suburbia would be suicide. That's my plan anyway. We're going Jeramiah Johnson and we will do well.
I crack up when I read the ingredients of those emergency food things...they all say to "ADD WATER" which won't be existent if anybody needs emergency food, anyway...at least not for long. Still, living in earthquake country, I should be better prepared.
Keeping ones mouth shut about what one has, and where they have it would seem a plus, but that's just me...
Z: living along the San Andreas fault, no real need to keep your pantry full since when the entire house collapses you won't have access to it anymore anyway. Just keep your home owners insurance policy handy.
Kid, or should I say Mr. President, in some post apocalyptic scenario you are exactly right: your best chance of staying alive is to remain mobile. Trying to defend a stationary position from the assault of a mob is a fools errand.
And always has been, throughout human history.
Brighid: doesn't matter really whether your goodies are secret or not. The mob will find your goodies in time and then take them. Perhaps after a heated gun battle, or even several gun battles. But the mob will win in the long run.
I'm not coming off as "Mr. Sunshine," in this post apocalyptic discussion, am I?
It doesn't matter if the mob finds your trove if you're dead...
If you don't eat packaged, dried food, laced with preservatives now (like MRE's but less appealing), what makes you think that you'd find them appealing during the apocalypse?
I really didn't like C-Rats except for the corned beef hash and the various fruit cans. I thought that K-Rats were acceptable given where I was. And I lived/served long enough to eat MRE's, which have improved since the early "Meals Rejected by Ethiopians". Even so, if you don't drink copious amounts of water while eating them, you will 'bind up' (trying to keep it civil on a family blog).
WHEN the big one hits, it's all about the water. I can kill and roast people, but water is an issue. I've heard that people who buy Wise Food Storage taste better and the meat preserves itself because of the contents of those packets.
LL: yes, I ate C-Rats in the 1970's that were packaged during the Korean War. They still tasted OK. Then MRE's came along, and after gagging down C-Rats for several years, those new fangled 'just add water' rats were the best tasting stuff I had eaten, well, ever. Of course, after a few years of chwoing down on MRE's, those get old too.
I had my favorites of each: the C-Rat turkey loaf was pretty good, at least as far as I was concerned. My favorite 'entre' MRE was most definitely the beef stew. And the strawberry shortcake was to die for: the strawberry shortcake packet became a defacto currency. I would pull someone else's guard duty for just two strawberry shortcakes. And soldiers would hoard them. I wonder if that's true anymore, since my last active duty days guys still wore black combat boots, and the Abrahams M1 tank and Humvees were just adopted (early-mid 1980's).
Regarding MRE's, I liked all the deserts. The strawberry shortcake was good, but I also liked the peaches and the pears and ate them without adding water because they sort of crackled and popped as you chewed them and they sucked water from your mouth as they re-constituted. You'd still need water to wash them down, but that's how I liked to eat them. Things changed with the MRE's when they came out with the warming packets. Slide the breakfast omelet in one warming packet and the hash browns in another one. I have to admit that it's the best powdered egg-type thing I have ever eaten. It's not as good as fresh, but for what it is, it works.
Regarding C-Rats, yes, I've eaten them as old as WW2 and the turkey loaf was good. Ham and lima beans, were really bad, though I knew guys who combined them with a bottle of tobacco and swore by them.
LL: I forgot about the C-Rat Lima beans and ham, the slimiest garbage ever. They were famously bad. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY ate those, no matter how hungry.
Great post Fredd (but you know that).
I was listening to the radio a few years ago, and the host asked callers for their prep tips.
One guy called in and said that he lived in an area in which his neighbors had food but no guns and he had guns, so he would supply their security for food.
I called in right after and said my neighbors had food but no guns, and I had guns.
He asked "and?" and I repeated myself.
It took him a few seconds....
Ed:
It's good to have lots of food and guns in Fredd's post-apocalptic U.S., but lots of food and guns do you absolutely, positively no damn good if you don't have a critical third element to go along with them: mobility.
Defending 'an area in which his neighbors...' (no need to finish this quotation) is a fools errand. You will never be able to keep the mob out of your goodies. There's going to be just too many of them, and they will overwhelm your 'area with neighbors' in short order.
You have to load up all of your guns and grub onto something mobile: an RV, a van, even a motorcycle with side car. But something that can stay ahead of the mob.
I've watched too many "Mad Max" films, and have seen what happens to fortified areas. That, and I've read some history featuring Ghenghis Khan. Both have similarities: you can't defeat the Mongol hordes, and there's no negotiating with 'The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla."
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