Ewww?

Ewww to which, the poster’s refigerator habits, or to the contents of the bucket?

Most likely a little Ewwww to both, to be honest. This is an EMERGENCY food supply. You know… for emergencies. The ‘food’ is freeze dried; not unlike hiker’s meals. I own two of these buckets. I haven’t tried the meals yet. Actually, I hope I never HAVE to.

See, we happen to live in the Pacific Northwest where our particular sorts of of catastrophic emergency might call for this sort of survival gear. Afterall, where I live, I’m susceptible to: tsunamis, hurricane-force storms, monster ice storms that freeze the region for days uninterrupted, eruptions from any one of seven volcanoes (Mt St Helens among them), earthquakes, landslides, and floods. And in my relatively short life, I’ve only missed out on the tsunami.

Now, I’ve never been in a catastrophe so severe as to need this sort of food supply to survive, but sufficiently drastic occurrences of any one of these types of disasters could cause us to be holed up for days, or weeks.

Our primary residence is in a major metro area. The bucket we keep there is intended to be thrown in the vehicle, with camping gear, should an evacuation order come. How long we’d be on our own until we could reach aid would be uncertain, given that most of the catastrophies we might encounter are likely to disrupt travel. This food bucket, as unsavory as the meals might be, is better than many other options under such circumstances.

We also spend a great deal of time at the family compound on the rural Oregon Coast. We have one of these buckets there, too, in case a catastrophic event leaves us unable to get back to ‘civilization’ of if the beach compound is the location to which we evacuate.

Obviously, this product’s primary purpose is to provide easily-stored, easily-transported, easily-prepared calories…not a dining experience. I’m okay with that.

As a parting comment, on the top of each bucket, we wrote the expiration date (20 years is a long shelf life. Heck, I could expire before IT does!) so as to document the effective life for everyone who comes in contact with this item. We also wrote a set of instructioins, something to the effect of:

“If you ever have need to use this bucket for an actual emergency, thank C________ for having the foresight to stock this for you. If C_____ is there with you, hug her. If she’s NOT there, say a prayer for her. You have this when you need it because C_______ cared.”

Just a little tribute to my wife with the foresight.