I went to my guy neighbor’s house next door to see if he happened to have some extra twine that would fit my weed-eater.   I was just in the midst of finishing off my yard work when Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head. .. I ran out of twine.   (Oh, for those of you girlie-girls not versed in the finer art of yard work – a weed-eater trims the edges of your grass and won’t work without twine.  I’m just sayin’.)

So, I knocked on the door and plead my case.  After looking at the remnant of twine in my hand, Mr. Man said he was sure he had just what I needed and graciously invited me into his “man-garage”.

I know he must have heard the sucking sound I made as we both walked into the garage.  Stuff was every where … e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. 

Now it was common knowledge in our neighborhood that Mr. Man had a little of very thing (I can now attest to that!)

As he scoured around, picking up things, moving things, knocking over things, and mumbling to himself, I wondered how in the world anyone could find anything in this place – of course all the while outwardly smiling.  

There was actually stuff on top of stuff.  Boxes, bags, opened packages, crates, shelves – all crammed full of … stuff.

As I stood there, I began to think this was a not-so-good decision on my part.  Heck I could probably take a pair of scissors and cut my backyard by hand in the time it would take for him to find the twine.

Standing on what I assumed was the landing to his house; only guessing as it was the highest point in the garage, I stood motionless, with my frozen smile, for fear of falling into the abyss and never being heard of again.

I was suddenly shocked outta my interpretation of Lot’s Wife by a muffled “I got it” from deep in the crevices of the unknown.

And sure enough, there he stood all disheveled with a gnarled mass of yellow twine, his hand thrust upward like he had just won the Tour de France or something.   And to my amazement, it was the right size twine too!

I thanked Mr. Man kindly for his kindness and went on my way.

As I was walking back to my house, I thought about Mr. Man’s garage.   How in the world would he or anyone with all that stuff be able to find anything in a disaster situation? 

I am almost certain that Mr. Man had at least one of each of everything known to man.  But the key in a disaster situation – would be to be able to find it.

So, this brings me to a not so pleasant thought – I wonder how many of us have our survival supplies lying around just like in Mr. Man’s garage?

Have you been doing the stop-drop-and roll thing?   You know, you buy a 50 lbs bag of something and then drag it in the house exhausted and just leave it where it dropped, next to the one you dropped the last time, and the one before that, and so on and so forth until you have a nice pile of … eh … supplies?

Ladies, we need to be a little more organized in our preparedness.   Supplies will not do us any good if they are all just piled up on one another or scattered about. 

We don’t know the moment when we will need to put our hands on whatever it is we may need in an emergency situation.

For you this means, you need to start labeling, marking, categorizing … the whole shebang, for each and every item you have in your survival arsenal and, organized it all accordingly.

Get in those closets, pantries, cabinets, under the bed and yes, even the garage and start getting things in order.

That’s an order!

- Survivor Jane

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Survivor Jane is not intended to be expert, legal or even medical advise - just one girl sharing with others.