You may never need them – you hope you’ll never need them – but you buy them anyway just in case; because the outcome if you should need them and don’t have them is just so bleak.

I just finished watching “end Day” on Netflix. It made me think not so much about teotwawki, but the preps I have in place “just in case”. Now that I have been working toward resilience for quite some time now, the initial overreaction has passed. Point in case, I am more prepared for a pandemic than I am for an extended job loss. Which do you suppose is more likely?

Having said that, I do realize that, even though the former is far less likely, it is easier to prepare for because there are so many “one and done” things you can do to prepare for them; and unlike the latter, once the former strikes it may be too late to do anything more than what you have already done to mitigate the risk.

Back to my point, I did realize there are some things which may be necessary that I have not yet added to my preps. Two come to mind immediately: two wind up time keeping devices (don’t think it really matters whether they are watches or clocks), and goggles to accompany my air filter masks. The first we need so that we can coordinate with our peeps (family members, tribe, band, whatever) and know that someone either is where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there, or they’re not. The second is because some bugs could get in if someone sneezes and we catch it in the face. In the movie, one of the scenarios was a pandemic, and the rescue workers were wearing the hazmat suits and had eye protection.  That’s when I asked myself “shouldn’t I have some eye protection as well as my filter masks”?

I wear glasses so I am going to get some prescription sports goggles to fit that bill.  I suppose my eye protection that I use with the table saw over my glasses would work, but that is so cumbersome and inefficient, and since I can get a pair of sports goggles for $30…

In another scenario a husband and wife are not together when news of a catastrophe hits, one is at home and she starts loading up the minivan with water, food, etc, and the husband is out and about with their kid.  I thought, “How will she know whether know whether to keep waiting or cut and run?  Do they have a rendezvous point?”  What if you do link up – or start out together – and then have to split up, how would we know when to worry, or bug out alone?

The wind up watches won’t really be necessary as long as there is electricity, since we can charge and use our phones. Even if we can no longer sync to a network so our time of day is accurate, we can still use the timer or stopwatch function (app) on our phones. The only two times I can think of where this would be undoable is an EMF or we are away from any way to recharge for a few days. Still, something to consider.