Nerd Pride Radio

Well, are ya?
My wife and I are building up our pantry and a few dry goods.

So far our kit has:
mac and cheese kits
spaghetti noodles
sauce for said noodles
sugar
minute rice packets
peanut butter
gatorade drink mix
water - gallon jugs (noreally necessary because I have a spring as well as 2 streams on my land
paper goods
cleaner/ sanitizer (undiluted)

Not really doing anything special. We normally have a couple weeks worth of food in our basement freezer at any given time, and usually an extra month or so worth of prescription medications, so we're not particularly worried about staying alive and well if we need to self-quarantine. And compared to a lot of people, our exposure is limited: while our son attends the local public high school, I work from home and my wife is a homemaker, so we're both pretty much already self-quarantined most days. So our big risk of exposure is our son.

If shit goes bad enough that electricity fails and we lose our frozen food supply, and cannot boil water for consumption, then we're truly in a Walking Dead type situation and it won't matter how prepped we are.

We also usually have a week or two worth of food available. My only prepping was to make sure we have basic OTC cold and flu meds in the house, plus I bought backup bags of dog and cat food. Normally, I don't buy pet food until the old bag is out, but now we're going to always have an extra bag on hand.

We normally eat a lot of fresh produce and non-frozen meat or protein, so if we get to that "please stay home for two weeks" public health instruction, I wanted to have canned veggies and fruit and protein sources. And vitamins. I don't know how we can go comfortably without milk for two weeks, so right now I just want to always have tons of milk on hand. Milk addicts here. Coffee is also something I don't want to run out of.

Plus the younger kids might be somewhat freaked by the experience, so I wanted things for baking cookies and whatnot, or pre-packaged snacks, to pull out as a pleasant diversion if they have to eat canned soup for days.

Pet food and kitty litter is a must; I don't want to run out of cat toilet and have that be the thing that forces me into a store. Likewise, tampons. Tissues. The usual comfort items for colds and coughs. Laundry detergent and disinfectant. We set up a washing area so the first thing upon entry is: wash, remove shoes and outergarments, bags. Then I disinfect all that stuff and wipe down the car handles and interior.

Odds are high someone will get sick, but the main thing is to cut those odds a little and minimize chances that I carry it along to the parents.

Since the first cases in Maryland are in my county, my wife is freaking a bit. So I'm going to the grocery store after work to stock up.

We're near the main campus of the state university (with a large international student population) and their academic hospital, which is where the first case in our state, and one of the first cases in the nation, occurred.

Things are getting vaguely crazy here, but at the same time most people are still just going around in public doing their normal business. So which is it? Should we be social distancing? The big problem is being terrified to infect my parents accidentally.

Just don't attend CPAC or go on a cruise, and you'll probably be okay. Right?

When did toilet paper become a survival need to the point of hoarding it? It doth seem quite silly

Also I think it must have entered our hive minds through a movie, such as Zombieland. I seem to recall in some movie a funny thing that everyone was looking for toilet paper. what's next? Hoarding Twinkies ?

I am looking at purchasing a bidet conversion kit for one of the toilets...just to be cautious. Anyone else?
I think Kyle has one because it was he that put the thought in my head about 2 years ago.

I went to Academy Sports & Outdoors and there were 9 people in line wanting to buy guns and countless others buying lots of bullets. *sigh*

here comes Mad Max: Charmin Warrior

My husband's first thought in this situation is guns. Mine is protein shakes. Not sure what lesson to draw from this, but those were our first thoughts.

I picked up rifle rounds only(30-06,30-30), no AR stuff. I keep a good store on hand. We have a whole herd of deer and I might as well bag one while it is still a little cool out. put the meat to good use.

I will be putting up a steel gate at the end of the driveway I think. gates and locks only stop honest people though.

PICKLES

Pickles is a good idea..

Add to that list: Salt, coconut oil. vegetable oil, powdered milk(for cooking) flour , sugar

I need to buy: camping propane cylinders and refill my spare propane cyl. for the grill.

5 gallons of diesel for my tractor.

Propane for grill is an excellent idea. We haven't checked it for a while but warmer weather is coming.

Super happy: husband now able to work from home at least for a while!

A little further into the journey of discovery and it turns out the main things we eat in this house are cheese, tortilla chips, salsa, banana bread, apples, rice krispies, oatmeal, ice cream, pickles, diet Coke (one person) and milk. That's it. That's our diet, if we judge only by the things we run out of.

Ours is milk mostly and hot dogs it would seem.