Ready or Not

I’m going to be exhausted from getting ready.
I was just reading the new Homeland Security department’s website www.ready.gov. It’s a how-to guide preparing you, your home and your family for a nuclear, biological or chemical attack. It is now our patriotic duty to stockpile “essentials” in case of terrorist attack. “Essentials” as defined by Tom Ridge and his boys and girls at Homeland Security HQ. A quick look in my pantry proves what a traitor I am. A crusty squeeze bottle of mustard, a dusty jar of kosher dill pickles, a container of a substance resembling a shrunken head and 17 extremely expired blueberry yogurts. The only thing I am prepared for is take-out.

According to ready.gov we need to have three days worth of water, medicines, moist towelettes, canned fruits, veggies and meats. Are canned meats actually food? What about beef jerky? Food or flame retardant? I don’t know about you but in a cataclysmic disaster I’m gonna need something a little more substantial than a potted meat product and mandarin oranges in heavy syrup. Then I spotted near the bottom of the list, perhaps just an after-thought, the item that finally made me take it all so seriously. My eye caught the most meaningful suggestion on the list “Comfort/Stress Food.”

I am in ecstasy. It is now my patriotic duty to hoard hermetically sealed sleeves of Mallowmars and vacuum-packed bags of gummy bears. Stashing bottles of YooHoo is no longer a sign that I’m a chocoholic, it’s now a sign of my American loyalty. I wonder if I can get a tax break? I might even include some of those killer Oreos. If they don’t make me feel better I could feed some of those creamy sandwiches to the evildoers and the hidden transfats would kill them. In about 35 years.

I do have experience in the field of disaster foods. What I learned is that you don’t want to be stock piling a favorite food. It was the summer of 1966. I was 5 years old. My sister Melanie was just three. Then without warning, all the lights went out. It was New York City’s first Big Blackout. I was terrified. My mother tried to sooth me with the standard five-year-old’s perfect meal: macaroni and cheese. Mom lit candles so we could see. My 2-year-old sister Gwendolyn promptly fell into the toilet. Mom screamed. Melanie blew out all the candles while singing her newly learned rendition of Happy Burfday. I threw up. I haven’t had a taste for mac and cheese since.

We also didn’t know where Dad was that fateful night. Did he think of calling his nervous wife, who had visions of her husband trapped in an elevator on the 37th floor with a bunch of blonde honeys while she cleaned up the remnants of regurgitated dinner? Oh, no. As the story goes he was stuck in Manhattan on the ground level fulfilling his deepest fantasy: directing traffic. Which leads me to a problem with one of the recommendations on the Ready.Gov site. It suggests that we have a “family communication plan.” Doesn’t every family wish that? Has anyone at the Homeland security department ever gone home for the holidays? Who has family communication? Maybe they plan on replacing the annoying beeeeeeeep of the Emergency Broadcasting System with advice from Dr. Phil. As Dr. Phil would say... GET REAL!

Ready.Gov also reminds us that in a chemical or biological attack, we must seal ourselves in safest place in the house to avoid toxic atmospheric “junk.” Remember when we all raced to Home Depot to get duct tape to hide out in something akin to human Ziploc bags? Maybe I don’t need to do that. I live in Los Angeles. You can sometimes chew the air. I think I already have built up an immunity.

I have figured out the safest hideaway. If the attack comes you’ll find me embedded in the back hall closet. It’s the repository of my once wearable ‘skinny clothing’ and thousands of dollars of uncomfortable shoes. What could be more terrifying than facing down a Size 6 skirt with Size 10 thighs? I’ll take my chances on the airborne junk. And if the evildoers come after me I’ll be armed with some savage stiletto heels that may very well have been listed as a weapon of metatarsal destruction.

Ready.Gov also lists bare necessities to take into your secret place: a portable radio, a flashlight with fresh batteries (not like mine that’s leaking like a corrosive mini-Chernobyl.) Yes, we’ll need those things. But, it’s clear the women at Home-Sec did not have a say in what a necessity truly is. Women, pull out your purses now! Look at what’s really fundamental in your life. We need emery boards and wadded up tissues and melted “Lunar Mist Pink” lipstick and tweezers for removal of pesky body hairs that most certainly will be standing up on end during such a crisis. And maybe an iPod, filled with incomprehensible heavy metal lyrics that we could spend hours deciphering.

I’m sure the Homeland Security Department struggled with finding the balance between being informative and being a total sky-is-falling alarmist. Considering how ridiculous the whole duct tape thing became and the grinning that goes on every time Homeland Security adjusts it color wheel alarm system, I just hope they know what they are suggesting and they are ready for the nationwide run on Mallowmars.

by Stephanie Becker, Mass Distractions columnist for BestStuff.com