My grandparents were preppers in the 1970s.

They’re all dead now. Did not live to see 9/11 (well, one did, but by that time she was in her 90s and so far gone into dementia she didn’t notice or care). Didn’t live through this. I think they actually DID live through the 1918 pandemic (they were kids at the time, probably — never mentioned it during my lifetime); they lived through the depression and WWII and plenty of other things.

But all those cans of veggies and soup and what-not in the cellar? All that Tang? They never had a need. And now, I’m wondering WHY they stocked up on canned goods, but apparently never even thought about stocking up on toilet paper or fabric to make masks or…

I no longer wonder, though, why my grandmother was loathe to waste anything, including the plastic tubs the margarine came in. You just never know.

And like your wife, I’m doing odd things — I’m rationing onions and surreptitiously hoarding ginormous things of Jif peanut butter that it should take me two years to eat if I start now. I’m pretty sure I can make it six months on the toilet paper we already had (no one wants to shove those Costco packages into their car on a biweekly basis unless they have 16.5 kids, amiright?) and if not, well, I pray nightly for the health and well-being of the folks who run the power company, the water treatment plants, and the backbone of the Internet and Netflix.