The Tao of Martha (37 page)

The scope and breadth of the storm, coupled with the government’s inability to quickly aid the affected, has caused me to redouble my efforts in terms of prepping. The concept of “having enough” is so important to me, and the act of stockpiling has been a huge mood elevator. Every time UPS drops off a box, I feel like I’m taking a positive step to ensure our futures. Back in the
Bitter
days, we had an inkling of what it was like to want for basic needs, and I vowed that was the last time this would happen.

I will never be caught without my pants on again.

(Underpants, either.)

G
OBBLE,
G
OBBLE

“L
emme see.…” I glance down at the packing checklist. “Ah, in this box, we should have almond milk, coconut milk, powdered heavy cream, and powdered butter.”

“Didn’t know a lot of these products existed,” Fletch says. We’re standing at the table I’ve set up in front of my prepping shelves. I’ve had so many shipments come in lately that I need help getting everything unpacked and organized. I’ve had to annex another whole set of shelves to accommodate my supplies, and now all our holiday decorations are in freestanding tubs in the center of the basement. Fletch didn’t want to cede the space, but I’m all, “You want a tidy place to store ornaments, or do you want enough pinto beans to survive a nuclear winter?”

Fletch picks up one of the cans on the table. “What are we going to do with powdered buttermilk?”

I look up from my list and push my sweaty bangs out of my eyes. “Isn’t that the whole point of prepping? Right now, I’m not sure what we’d do
with powdered buttermilk. But if there’s an
event
and we need buttermilk? Boom. Ready.”

He nods slowly. “I see.”

Fletch, who was originally a hundred percent behind this endeavor, has started to sound more and more Team Stacey, especially now that the boxes of my supplies are too high to see over.

“Oof, this is heavy. Give me a hand, please?” I’m struggling under the weight of a giant rectangular box. “This goes over in pet supplies.” He assists me and then I whip out my box cutter and busy myself unpacking all the canned dog food.

“I thought we were just feeding dry food now. Don’t we have plenty of that already?” He squints meaningfully at the tower of airtight thirty-gallon tubs I have stacked beneath the stairs. Ever since Hambone saw me filling the tubs, she insists on sitting next to them when she’s down here. She’s currently standing guard. And drooling.

I hold up a can. “See, these serve double duty. That’s why I bought Evanger’s. Their dog food is made of human-grade whole foods without additives or preservatives. If things get bad and we burn through our cache of meats, experts advise eating dog food as a cheap, available source of protein. Check out this case of Hunk of Beef—it’s like a mini pot roast! Maisy used to like this, and one time I was curious, so I tasted it. Needed salt, but otherwise, fairly tasty and absolutely something we could consume in a pinch. Throw the Evanger’s, rice, and some dried veggies in boiling water? Instant stew!”

He crosses his arms and leans back against the furnace. “Good to know, especially since you’re spending all our retirement money on dog food. We’ll need the Evanger’s.”

“Wrong. My budget is what we’d been spending on Maisy’s kidney medicine. So in a way, it’s like she’s looking out for us from the great beyond.”

Fletch says nothing, only narrowing his lips in response, likely
because he knows this is a lie, but he’s never going to challenge me when I play the Maisy card. Although her meds were pricey, I’ve actually stopped buying anything nonessential, like clothes, antiques, or magazines, and instead have funneled all our extra funds into prepping.

He sits down on a large box and watches me arrange the dog food by expiration date. “What’s in here?” he asks, pointing down.

I stand back and assess. “Mmmm, not sure. Could be all the big fake rocks we’re going to use for rainwater collection under the drain spouts. Or maybe they’re the WaterBOBs I ordered. Each bladder holds up to a hundred gallons of freshwater when placed in the bathtub. That reminds me—we should discuss our long-term water storage needs.” I have to pause to blot the sweat rolling down the side of my face. Prepping is a great form of cardio!

I continue. “There’s a retention pond about a tenth of a mile from here, according to satellite images, and, of course, there’s that creek that runs through the Open Lands park down the street. Best-case scenario is getting water directly from the lake, but we’d need a motorized cart to get there, because it’s too far to go on foot. I’m looking into those. I’m really intrigued by the ones that run on biodiesel.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“Back to water, though—we should figure out our purification strategy.”

He scratches his beard. “Should we?”

I glance up from the box of medical supplies I’m unpacking. “Of course! You know the rule of three—you can go three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Water’s too important to leave to chance. I thought we could do something with ultraviolet light, but if the water starts off cloudy, like you’d find in a retaining pond, or, really, Lake Michigan, then it doesn’t work as well. Reverse osmosis is wasteful, and you need an electrical source for distillation to work. What if the grid’s down?”

“What if, indeed?”

“A certified purifier is the best way to go, but boiling works in a pinch, even though I read it gives the water a funny taste.”

“Wouldn’t want a funny taste,” he agrees.

“Are you humoring me?”

“Not in the least.”

I set down my box and walk over to the second shelving unit. “Well, smarty, I’ve already accommodated for water that might taste bad. See? Look.” I point to various cylinders all Vanna White style. “You’ll notice that we have an almost unlimited variety of powders to stir into our water—Tang, fruit punch, lemonade, cranberry, and, if we’re feeling festive, mojito!”

“I’d hate to think we were heading into the apocalypse without benefit of mojito-flavored water.”

“Right? Anyway, help me find a space for these.” I shove a handful of foil-wrapped capsules at him.

“And these are?”

“Potassium iodide—they protect your thyroid against radioactive iodine released during—”

“I know what they’re for. I just didn’t realize you’d ordered them.”

I made a place for the pills between a bunch of vitamins and a year’s supply of Tylenol PM, which, according to prepper handbooks, are a necessity because people have trouble sleeping during crises. “Good to have them, though, right? I wonder if they work on the dogs. Do dogs have thyroids? I’ll have to check. Oh, and next time we’re at Pet Supplies Plus, remind me to pick up Fish Mox Forte. Did you know they contain the same ingredient as human antibiotics? And you don’t need a prescription.”

“Yeah, I saw that episode with you.”

“Oh, good, then I don’t have to explain.”

Fletch’s stomach rumbles audibly. “Can you hand me some of those
peanut butter–and-cheese crackers?” One of the prepping sites advised stocking lots of ready-to-eat snacks, because in emergencies, people need quick bits of comfort foods, as it makes them feel like things are normal. That’s why I also have many packs of individually wrapped cookies, chips, trail mixes, and granola bars, as well as a shit-ton of leftover Halloween candy.

Stupid, nonexistent trick-or-treaters.

“Why do you want the peanut-butter crackers?”

“To eat. I’m starving!”

I shake my head vehemently. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Those are for emergencies.”

“We have a hundred packages; I can’t have one? Out of a hundred?”

“If we open up the peanut-butter crackers, then you’ll have crackers and then I’ll want crackers and then there won’t be any crackers left when the big one hits.”

“What
big one
in particular?”

“Whatever big one! You wanted me to be prepared? Well, this is what prepared looks like.”

He sinks back onto his box throne. “This is unbelievable. I should just be hungry?”

“Better now than later. You’ll thank me one day for being disciplined. Besides, I don’t want to open any packaging. For long-term storage, we’re going to need a bunch of those number ten buckets, as well as packets to prevent oxidization. And speaking of, I’ve been looking for a local LDS cannery—where the Mormons get their supplies. I found one in Naperville, but I’m not sure they sell to nonmembers.”

Fletch idly thumbs through my “fire-starter shelf,” which is full of waterproof matches, flints, and lighters, as well as mini camp stoves, lanterns, and Mylar blankets. “I have to hand it to you—you’ve really thrown yourself into this project.”

“It made sense. Not only am I helping to safeguard our future, but I feel like I’ve embraced all the principles of Martha here. Although I can’t say that my foray into prepping meets the letter of Martha’s laws, I’m convinced that it satisfies the spirit of them. Everything Martha features in her books and magazines and on her shows—whether it’s canning or building your own chicken coop, or just preparing a tasty apple pie—in some way improves people’s quality of life. And I’m convinced being ready for the unexpected will absolutely improve
our
quality of life, you know?”

“I agree, even though I don’t think one set of crackers is going to send our whole world crashing down.”

“Probably not, but do you really want to take that risk?”

Truly, I believe that being ready in case of disaster is an important tenet in the whole Tao of Martha, that specifically being: Proper preparation ensures a better tomorrow.

“Well, I’m going back up to the surface to get a snack.” He begins to climb the stairs, while Libby and Loki trail behind him. Hambone stays by the binned food. See? She appreciates my preps.

“Thank you for your help. I’m probably good from here.” And I am good. I’m locked and loaded for whatever may come our way next.

He gets halfway up the stairs before poking his head around the corner. “Hey, I just realized—isn’t Thanksgiving this Thursday?”

Shit.

H
ow did I not realize that Thanksgiving is Thursday?

This Thursday?

As in four days from now?

How do I spend eleven months following in Martha’s footsteps, only to screw up the one holiday that counts more than all the rest in the
Living
playbook?

WTF, self?

I feel like that marathon runner on
Seinfeld
who overslept and missed the Olympics.

Of course, Christmas is a big deal in the Martha universe, but that holiday entails events all month long, from baking to decking the halls to parties, yet everything comes down to one crucial day on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is the big dance!

Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl of homemaking!

This day brings in every element I’ve been concentrating on all year, from organizing to cleaning to entertaining. And decorating and, duh,
cooking
. There’s even a pet management element in regard to not letting dogs eat turkey bones (and keeping asshole cats off the buffet). And I didn’t even realize it because I’ve been so busy rearranging cans of turkey SPAM.

What is
wrong
with me?

I knew Thanksgiving came particularly early this year, but I still wasn’t expecting it for at least another week. Shoot, I haven’t even reserved an organic turkey yet! (“I’ll take ‘The Most Overprivileged, First-World Complaint to Ever Be Uttered’ for a hundred, Alec!”)

I go directly to my office to look at my calendar to make sure he’s not just messing with me. Please, please, please…Crap, he’s not.

I gather up all my recipes folders and cookbooks and dash back to the kitchen to start making a list of everything I’ll need to execute this day with so little notice.

Damn it
.

Just doing the pies alone will take me an entire day, because I want to make crusts from scratch. I’ll need to have the carpets cleaned, the linens have to be dry-cleaned, or at least laundered and pressed, I have
to figure out a menu, followed by making an actual guest list, and then I have to grocery shop and buy liquor and I’m already overwhelmed.