We have emergency food in our home. My girl thinks we should have more. Every once in a while she tells me it would be a good idea to go down to Smart and Final and buy a bunch of canned goods and bottled water in case there is a major natural or man-made disaster and we are cut off from contact with the rest of the world and bumped off the power grid.
We never actually do this, as it would cut into our funds for alcohol and vacations, but we do have some standby stuff, as I said. This mostly consists of canned goods we don't want to eat and whatever water is left in the big Sparklett's upside-down bottle, so we are much better prepared for the end of the world the day after Kimo, our Sparklett's guy, drops off a fresh bottle than we are the day before.
The other thing we had was a roll of sausage in the freezer. We even referred to it as 'Apocalypse Sausage.' The theory was, once the End Days began, the stuff in our freezer would slowly defrost and we could eke out a few more weeks of survival cooking it on the gas grill while waiting for the world to end, Jesus to come back, or the power company to turn the lights on again, whichever came first.
I shattered those plans the other day by running out of bacon. The only meat left to eat with my eggs was the Apocalypse Sausage. I defrosted it and grilled it on the George Foreman, slid it on a plate with the eggs and took a big bite.
"Is that the Apocalypse Sausage you're eating?" my girl asked, in a tone that reflected her negative opinion of my shortsighted, selfish, possibly survival-threatening move. Then, because she had to know, she said, "How is it?"
I took another bite so I could give her an accurate answer. As I was chewing, I reflected on the history of the sausage. It had probably been in my freezer for five years before I moved it to our present abode. It had been given to me by a friendly neighbor who had embraced vegetarianism. I did not ask at the time how long it had been in his freezer. Maybe even longer. He, like I, had probably avoided defrosting the cold, cylindrical brick of pig meat for much the same reasons I had—it seemed like too much trouble, especially for someone like myself who seldom forgets to buy bacon.
"Well?" she asked again.
I reflected as the bits of freezer-burnt pork soaked my palate. "If the end of the world actually happened, and we survived for long enough to be forced to eat this, it could easily be the worst part about living through humanity's last days," I replied. "After just a couple bites, we would long for armed mutants to show up to cannibalize us. If you had to put a flavor to final, hopeless despair, this would be it. For certain."
Even the dog wouldn't touch it. Too bad. Now that that sausage went down the Insinkerator, I've got to think about fattening him up.
We never actually do this, as it would cut into our funds for alcohol and vacations, but we do have some standby stuff, as I said. This mostly consists of canned goods we don't want to eat and whatever water is left in the big Sparklett's upside-down bottle, so we are much better prepared for the end of the world the day after Kimo, our Sparklett's guy, drops off a fresh bottle than we are the day before.
The other thing we had was a roll of sausage in the freezer. We even referred to it as 'Apocalypse Sausage.' The theory was, once the End Days began, the stuff in our freezer would slowly defrost and we could eke out a few more weeks of survival cooking it on the gas grill while waiting for the world to end, Jesus to come back, or the power company to turn the lights on again, whichever came first.
I shattered those plans the other day by running out of bacon. The only meat left to eat with my eggs was the Apocalypse Sausage. I defrosted it and grilled it on the George Foreman, slid it on a plate with the eggs and took a big bite.
"Is that the Apocalypse Sausage you're eating?" my girl asked, in a tone that reflected her negative opinion of my shortsighted, selfish, possibly survival-threatening move. Then, because she had to know, she said, "How is it?"
I took another bite so I could give her an accurate answer. As I was chewing, I reflected on the history of the sausage. It had probably been in my freezer for five years before I moved it to our present abode. It had been given to me by a friendly neighbor who had embraced vegetarianism. I did not ask at the time how long it had been in his freezer. Maybe even longer. He, like I, had probably avoided defrosting the cold, cylindrical brick of pig meat for much the same reasons I had—it seemed like too much trouble, especially for someone like myself who seldom forgets to buy bacon.
"Well?" she asked again.
I reflected as the bits of freezer-burnt pork soaked my palate. "If the end of the world actually happened, and we survived for long enough to be forced to eat this, it could easily be the worst part about living through humanity's last days," I replied. "After just a couple bites, we would long for armed mutants to show up to cannibalize us. If you had to put a flavor to final, hopeless despair, this would be it. For certain."
Even the dog wouldn't touch it. Too bad. Now that that sausage went down the Insinkerator, I've got to think about fattening him up.
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