PRIORITIZING
RECRIMINATIONS
I was going to title this “Prioritizing
Purchases”, but I realized that all we are really doing is picking and choosing
imperfectly and will later be faced with self-recriminations. As we are starving we will belittle our
purchase of a second FLIR scope or the mid grade sniping scope which we’re
really not even sure about how to use with those mil-dot things. If we have plenty of food, we’ll be pissed we
didn’t invest in a better assault rifle to keep the hoards away from our
pimping compound. We might bemoan TOO
many preps as we are stuck in the suburbs right next to the ghetto and the
Mau-Mau Uprising, realizing too late that we should have bought junk land
instead of overpaying for that piece of crap Detroit sheet metal with Bill
Gates Blue Screen Of Death computer controls.
*
Of course, obviously, you
are all going to be sorry you didn’t listen to me on a lot of stuff, but not
even I, master of the universe with perfect hair, can reach a deity level of
greatness and I too have a hard time
effectively prioritizing. After the last
month stockpiling White Foods, should I have bought more wheat? Should I be buying the heck out of cheap as
dirt chicken and be running the dryer for chicken jerky 24-7 until the
dehydrator sputters and dies, instead?
Or was that $200 in lead a finally long overdue wise purchase?
*
You can drive yourself
crazy, except that you are probably content that you made the best decisions
with the limited available information you have now, having over thought most
purchases far too long before you pried open your wallets. With my limited income I try to be so overly
analytical with every single dollar spent that I would make the tightest Jew
blush in embarrassment ( to be clear, I think the cheap Jewish stereotype is
probably more of a reflection on the German propensity towards anal
compulsiveness, as the Scots make any Jew look rather spendthrift. Being Scot/German I’m the perfect miser ).
*
Yet, I’ve also long ago
passed the point where I have to worry about being too short on anything. I keep playing the game of finding new
shortages to worry about, such as without good cause suddenly changing my
minimum ammunition requirement from 10k rimfire to 15k, or from deciding my 5k
in 303 British now needs to double ( at least in carbine rounds, not full
powered ones ). I’ve been happy with my
1k count in 38/357 for nearly twenty years now.
And I’m sure one day I’ll look around at my embarrassment of riches (
only “rich” in extremely frugal terms, you understand ) and then decide, well,
it’s all perfect, EXCEPT…,I think I need more pistol rounds.
*
Not that I’m complaining. Once you reach that point, the apocalypse has
a hard time keeping you up at night.
That’s a good thing. Then you’re
just tweaking and perfecting. So, my
question becomes, “when you’ve prioritized long enough, bouncing from one Must
Have item to the next, until you come full circle back around to the start,
what happens then?” I have no idea,
because I keep re-prioritizing needs, but I know I’m doing something
wrong. What does one do with ones time
and money? You can’t go back to
frivolously spending. You just can’t. How do you enjoy a $10 giant bacon
cheeseburger and heaping pile of fries, when you know the mark-up of the food,
comparing it to your home-made?
*
As just discussed, I had
finally taken the whopping twenty minute round trip to go way out to the
recycling center and cash in my eight years worth of alcoholic ex-wife beer
cans for a cash windfall of $33. Now, we
went in the NOL’s car, and I am kind of overly fond of the old gal, so I
thought it would be fitting to spend the money on her, rather than myself. Well, it would be money spent on us, as she
is invited along on the ride for the apocalypse, but this reasoning sounds
hollow even to my own ears. And I can
justify anything by forcing it through the prepping paradigm. Sometimes money needs to be “wasted”.
*
And neither one of us
knows how to go waste it. We keep
putting off spending it. We are so used
to pinching pennies at home that neither one of us likes shopping. I finally had to insist that within a week we
needed to either go to the movies ( she loves the popcorn-but of course this
can only be on Bargain Tuesday’s when the entrance fee is under the cost of a
matinee ) or go out to eat a weekday post-lunch, pre-dinner meal ( the only
rational time to go out and eat ). This
is $33, mind you. Granted, as a
percentage of my income it can travel north of 10%. But I spend so little, and worry so much over
every dollar that it is inconsequential.
If we are having this hard of a time wasting $33, imagine quadrupling
that. Every month.
*
I can’t even contemplate
doing that. It boggles my mind. I’ve been so cheap for so long, I don’t know
what else to do but invest. It isn’t
like anyone is going to care about any of it when I die, if I kick it before
the apocalypse. I don’t even think
precious metals are going to be enough to get one of my kids on an airplane to
come out from the east coast. I wonder
if there will be much left after the air fare.
God, I’m turning into one of those cat ladies that leaves everything to
her feline friends in the will.
*
I guess this is where we
have to remind ourselves that humans are extremely flawed beings and
irrationality is the order of our every day existence. Why are we making flawed life decisions based
on “love”, an emotion that is only good for procreating? Why do we try to stay alive long after
everything hurts so much we curse God for waking up the next morning? Why do we think anything we do is all that
important? And the most vexing
question-why do you still read my drivel?
I’m kidding. You read it because
you are bored and I amuse you. Please
carry on.
*
Today’s random blathering
brought to you out of a directionless mind.
Expect the normal far more brilliant horse offal to continue on
schedule.
( .Y. )
( today's related link https://amzn.to/2MY1Odv )
*
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*
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As far as priorities go, if you haven't placed as much distance as possible between yourself and impending doom then nothing else matters. THAT is the number one priority. Period. If you stay close to danger it will kill you, after it rapes the hell out all your openings and then tortures you and yours, and take your stuff. So with that in mind its best to NOT equip the ne'er do wells with anything. Just spend all your money everyday and when the bottom falls out open the front door and accept your just reward and take comfort in the fact that they got nothing useful long term from you.
ReplyDeleteSerious. Get out. No matter what it takes. Just get out.
After getting away from crowds, even if nothing happens you've made yourself safer from just everyday life. And improved quality of life. Even going to a much smaller town will improve your life. It won't increase apocalypse odds, but everything else is better.
DeleteOne nagging question that I’ve always wanted to ask was, what are your actual plans for a collapse? I ask because now that you’re living in town, you are not at all in a good position if it were to all come crashing down tomorrow. I also tend to think that your 5 miles from Elko homestead wouldn’t have offered much more of an advantage, being in such close proximity to town. The only thing that really ever made sense was for you to develop your remote parcel, and from what I’ve gathered, you have little interest in doing so. In either event, I don’t know if this is worth an article, but that’s sort of the direction that I was pushing here.
ReplyDeleteI was going to give you a long reply, but I think you are correct suggesting it as an article. Short answer, I'm screwed. Long answer, a longer collapse might offer good hope. Look for the article in eight days ( I'll write it tomorrow, all articles posted one week out ). Appreciate the brain storm!
DeleteLook forward to it. Wasn’t trying to be critical, but it seemed as if your primary plan was simply to stock goods. Which in and of itself, would have made you a sitting duck, had a collapse come on suddenly.
DeleteIt's okay to be critical. I KNOW my planning is inadequate and sucks. Primarily because it was always meant to be for an economic collapse, like 99%. My odds of surviving worse are better than the average bear, but no where close to what I need. I know that. Well, as I say, unless you are a hermit, you can't really survive the collapse.
Delete“How do you enjoy a $10 giant bacon cheeseburger and heaping pile of fries”.
ReplyDeleteAfter I lost weight, apparently my stomach shrank a good deal as well. Because a few times after, I went out to fast food and got the giant burger combo meals, with fries, and a drink. By the time I got through the burger, I was stuffed. The drink made it worse, and if I ate the fries, I usually got a belly ache. At that point I had to wonder what ordinary human could stuff themselves in such a manner and not suffer the consequences from it. Well, I suppose they do suffer, which is why obesity is so epidemic these days.
I think it has to do with age. You're young, you can eat two of those super meals. I started out with two huge meals, then went down to four medium, then eating a good amount every few hours. Now much less every few hours.
Deleteas you age you are advised to eat 5 or 6 small meals per day to let a slower digestion function well.
ReplyDeletesoup is good for us old people as the nutrition is high and it is hydrating.
Soap is a trick to get us to eat more cooked veggies!
Delete