…along with preparation!
In my last post, I talked about how timing was everything and how the sequence in which you experience different things (movies or RV parks for example) can have an impact on your impressions and relationship with these things. While we can do what we can to mitigate this, we never know what we don’t know. Since what we don’t know will always be more than what we do, surprises are inevitable.
Because we cannot always predict how these experiences come to us, we need to work out how we are going to allow them to impact us in real time. Sometimes we do this well, others not so well. After the fact, we can examine our reactions and find areas where we can improve. That is, of course, if improvement is anything we care about. But by learning from how we handle different experiences in the past, we can prepare our minds for when similar experiences occur again in the future.
This post is about being prepared
I was never a boy scout, I was barely a cub scout. I had to make a choice early on whether I wanted to be in scouts or play little league baseball and football. I chose the latter and so did not find value in being prepared until much later in life.
When we got to Tucson where we are staying now, I started having a dry little cough. I put it down to allergies and drove on. While I was ready to ignore the cough, it decided it would not be ignored. It quickly got so bad that neither Mireille nor I could sleep as I was coughing all night. Work was difficult not only because I was bone tired, but also because I could not be on the phone without being on mute for fear of sudden coughing fits blowing out eardrums on the other side of the globe! I am a big guy, and Mireille says that I have a very loud cough.
I went to the doctor a week ago Monday, and she gave me some medicine, treating primarily for allergies. I took the medication last week with so little improvement that I went back Saturday morning to see what else they could do.
After asking me a bunch of questions and listening to my lungs while I breathed deeply long enough that I thought I was going to hyperventilate myself to sleepy land, that doctor said he wanted to give me some antibiotics.
Now one thing you have to know about me, I do not like taking antibiotics! When the zombie apocalypse comes, I want to have at least a fighting chance at not catching whatever it is that makes one think of human brains as an irresistible delicacy. However, I could not continue not sleeping and coughing the way I had been. I had to weigh the two in the balance, and this time sleeping won, so I am taking the antibiotics.
So where does preparation come into all of this?
I needed to make sure Mireille knew where all the implements are in case I fall victim to the zombie apocalypse. While we do have a pistol, we don’t carry it with us because we want to be able to go into Canada anytime we want or need to. Besides, Mireille hates guns and has never shot one to my knowledge. As you know, when the zombie apocalypse comes, only headshots will count. I don’t want her missing the sweet spot and falling victim to me for lack of being able to shoot. When a six-foot-five-inch zombie is chasing you around the inside of your RV, it’s too late for target practice.
We do have a couple of other options, however. One is my birthday present from last year, a hand and a half axe for chopping firewood. This is an excellent choice because it gives Mireille a little “standoff” so she does not get within biting range, and either the sharp or the blunt side of the axe, adequately applied to the cranium, should do the job.
The other option is a kukri I got from Nepal with my brother. We were on the phone one day, and he was talking about Ghurka cigars. Since ghurka’s carried kukris, we thought it evident that the ideal implement to cut Ghurka cigars would be a kukri from Nepal. Amazon being the wonder that it is, we had our kukris on the way directly from Nepal to each of our homes before we got off the phone. It turns out that a kukri is overkill for cutting cigars but is an excellent alternative for close quarters, “help my husband is a zombie!” type action. In the event I make it past the axe, it is heavy and should do the trick as well.
With all this in mind, before I ever took a single antibiotic capsule, I made sure Mireille knew where both of these items were and what she should do with them if I ever fall victim to the zombie apocalypse. We aren’t preppers, and I may not be a boy scout, but we are prepared none the less. I sleep better knowing we are, that and because the antibiotics are doing their job and my cough is much better.