Boys and Their Toys -- You Can Never Be Too Prepared

BOYS AND THEIR TOYS — YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO PREPARED

There are different degrees of quiet. There’s the quiet during the night, after everyone has gone to sleep — the usual sounds that a house makes in the dark, late at night. Then there’s really quiet. The sound, or lack of sound, in that same house when the power has gone out. All the background mechanical sounds in the house are gone. Gone is the slight buzz from the nightlight in the kitchen. Gone is the quiet sound of the compressor in the fridge. Gone is the sound of the fan pushing hot air through the ductwork.

But the lack of sound is nothing compared to the lack of light. Sure, people say that the house is dark at night. But is it? When the power grid goes down, so do the lights — all the lights. No more light seeping in through the windows from the street lamps at the curb. No more tiny red lights on powerbars, DVRs, smoke detectors, or electronics. Gone are the numerous appliances reliably telling the time with bright LED numbers — the stove, the microwave, the alarm clock, the smart home thermostat. All gone. The only lights remaining are from those devices that are charged, but only until there is no power.

But Rayna and Theo knew none of this. They were sleeping deeply in their bed, in their house, in the suburbs. When the grid did go down, there was a second between the usual quiet and the absolute quiet that only their dog Boo heard. She raised her head, looked around, then returned to the dreams of dogs. 

Around five in the morning, Rayna snuggled into Theo, for warmth. She was still mostly asleep, but she was a bit cold, and unconsciously scootched closer.  

Around seven, she awoke more completely. First thing she noticed was that her nose was freezing. And the second thing that she noticed was that Boo was laying between her and Theo on the bed.

Opening her eyes fully, she looked around. It was just getting light out, and the day was dawning a dull grey.

She took her hand out from under the covers, and promptly put it back under.

She shook Theo awake.

“I think the furnace is broken.”

Now, Theo was a deep sleeper, but when Rayna said that the furnace was not working, Theo was instantly awake. Broken furnace meant frozen pipes which meant big-ass mess. Theo hated big-ass messes. Last year, when Boo put a tennis ball in the toilet, and the whole house had flooded was a painful enough memory to jar him instantly awake.

He jumped out of bed, then jumped right back in.

“Holy crap, Rayna, it’s cold in here!”

“I know,” she said, pulling the covers up to her chin. “That’s why I think the furnace is broken.”

“Damn!” said Theo, pulling the covers around his shoulders, “How long’s it be off?”

Rayna stuck her head out of her cocoon of blankets, and blew air towards the ceiling.

“Long enough for it to get cold enough for me to see my breath.”

Theo jumped out of bed again, and made a dash the pile of clothes that he had dumped on the floor the night before. His track-pants and hoodie were freezing.

“Damn!” he said, dressing as fast as he could.

Rayna looked around, sensing something was wrong.  

“Can you turn on the light?” she asked from the warmth of her nest.

Feet freezing on the chilly hardwood, Theo double-timed it to the wall plate and flipped the switch.

Nothing.

He tried it again.

Still nothing.

He looked at the wall plate, perplexed — that look you get when something that always works all of a sudden doesn’t.

“Power’s out,” said Rayna.

“Damn!” said Theo. “That’s the worst.” 

He grabbed his phone and looked for alerts. Three texts down, there it was. He read aloud.

“There is an extensive power outage affecting the entire eastern seaboard, west to the Great Lakes, from the far north, south to the Gulf of Mexico. There is no time estimate when power will be restored.”

Rayna picked up her phone, and started reading her newsfeeds. She looked up at Theo.

“The power grid’s been hacked.”

“Shit,” said Theo. “What does that mean?”

“I have no idea,” said Rayna, “but we’ve got to do something before we freeze to death.”

Jumping out of bed, Rayna said, “I’m going to start a fire,” She grabbed her clothes, layering up with her warmest sweaters and hoodies and vests.

She ran downstairs into the living room. For a number of years, Rayna had been considering replacing the wood burning fireplace with either a gas fireplace or an electric one. Both were cleaner and more modern than wood. But she couldn’t make up her mind, and had procrastinated mightily. Right now, though, she was glad she hadn’t pushed the issue. The fireplace would be invaluable for as long as the power was unavailable.

Throwing on her super winter jacket — the one she used when it was super cold out — and her boots, she went out back to collect some firewood. It wasn’t that much colder outside than it was in the house. The power must have been out for hours.

Theo insisted on buying at least a face cord of wood every year for the fireplace and the fire pit. Thankfully, they hadn’t actually used that much this year. She grabbed the bin that they used to haul wood to the house and started filling it with the neatly split logs, along with a smaller bin of kindling (thank you Theo). Rummaging in the recycling bin, she grabbed last week’s ad bag full of fliers and put them on top of the wood. They hadn’t had a newspaper delivered in forever, and she hoped that the thin sheaf of newsprint would be enough to start a good roaring fire.  

Inside, she opened the flue, crinkled the paper, made a small teepee of kindling, and stacked the logs in a pyramid shape over top, and ignited the pyre with the barbeque lighter. She watched as the flames caught and continued to grow.

In just a few minutes she could feel the heat seeping out of the fireplace, heating the air in front of her. She crouched like that, in front of the fire, warming up. She stretched her fingers towards the flames, flipping her hands back and forth like she was toasting bread. She added few logs to the top, and shut the screen. The fire was mesmerizing, and she found herself watching the flames dancing in the hearth. Before she could back away, Boo placed herself between Rayna and the fire, laid down on the warming hearth, and sighed audibly.  

Ranya smiled. That doggo loved her creature comforts.

Theo lumbered into the family room, his arms full of … stuff. A lot of stuff.

“Okay, I think we’re gonna need all this equipment.”

Rayna looked at him as he started placing the items on the ground around him.

“Water purifier. Check.”

Theo placed a big Jerry can on the floor.

Looking unconvinced, Rayna asked, “Water purifier? We have water.”

“Yeah, Babe, we do right now. But if they can hack the grid, they can hack the water system. Plus I might have to turn off the water main if it gets too cold. I don’t want the pipes to freeze”

“Okay …”

“Yeah, I’m also going to fill up the tub, just in case. That’s like thirty gallons that we’ll have on hand.”

Rayna just nodded.

“Tent.” He placed an orange oblong bag on the couch.

Still confused, “Tent?” she asked.

“Yeah. I read that if you’re in a long power outage sleeping in a tent inside can conserve body heat.” He looked at the bag and smiled. She had to concede it did make sense.

“Luckily, we’ve got the good Nemo Kunai winter tent. We got the three person model, so there’s going to be room for both of us and Boo. It’s the tent they use on Mount Everest, so it’s good for like eighty below.”

“I’m not sure our living room is going to get as cold as Mount Everest, hon.”

“Probably not, but hey, if it’ll keep us warm at Base Camp, then it’ll keep us warm in the living room.” A huge smile broke his face. 

Were we supposed to go to Everest Base Camp? she wondered. She didn’t think so.

Theo started putting more nylon bags on the living room couch.

“Sleeping bags, of course. And ground pads.  I’m so glad we bought the minus forty sleeping bags.”

He looked up, still smiling. Rayna remembered talking about buying the sleeping bags, but she had balked because of the three hundred and forty dollar cost. Each.

“We bought those?”

“Yeah, babe. Don’t you remember?”

She did not. In fact she remembered saying they were too expensive. But now was not the time to dispute the purchase.  

“And Boo’s bag.”

Now she knew this was a new purchase. She had no memory of ever discussing buying their dog her own sleeping bag.

“Boo’s bag?”

“Exactly. She needs a bed for winter camping. We can’t expect her to just sleep on the ground.”

He smiled at Boo. Boo sensing Theo was talking to her, wagged her tail. She didn’t get up and move away from the warm fireplace, but wagged her love back at him.

“I got her the Ruffwear insulated ground pad and dog sleeping bag. Also rated to forty below. She should be nice and comfy.”

Taking her phone out, Rayna Googled the price of the Boo’s combo. Almost three hundred dollars. Plus almost eight hundred for the two sleeping bags. And, drum roll please, over twelve hundred dollars for the tent Who was this man?

Theo didn’t even notice Rayna’s look of disbelief, while surveying their “gear.” He just continued to put the rest of the bags and containers on the floor around them.  

“I’ve got the Buddy heater, which is rated for indoors. Just in case we need it.”

He pointed to a box with a picture of a heater that she had seen used in a number of camping videos on YouTube. You could cook food on that bad-boy.

“And, of course, we’ve got the little Jackery,” he said pointing to a small orange and black cube.”

“The little Jackery?” Rayna asked.

“Yeah. It’s only a one thousand watt solar generator. Unlike the big Jackery, which is two thousand watts. I’ll go get it from the basement.”

Before Rayna could say anything, Theo disappeared back downstairs.

She looked around their living room. It looked like an REI showroom.  

When did Theo buy all this? she wondered. Sure, they had talked about going camping in the fall, but seriously, they had enough stuff to survive an Arctic freeze.

Theo came back carrying a much bigger orange and black cube. He plunked it on the floor beside the smaller cube.

“The big boy — two thousand watts,” he said before he turned and disappeared again, reappearing a few seconds later with what looked like four portfolio cases.

“Solar panels. Four hundred watts.”

Putting them down, he disappeared again.

“This should be it!” he said, placing two large tote bins on the floor.

“We have solar panels?” asked Rayna.

“Yup. We can charge our solar power stations when they get low. But,” he said, “we also have the gas-powered generator in the garage, in case it isn’t sunny.”

Rayna did know about the gas generator. They had decided to buy it way back in 2003 after a series of cascading failures had plunged the area around the Great Lakes into darkness for two days. They’d never used it, but it was one of those better-safe-than-sorry situations. But now they had more power sources. A lot more. Was that when it had started with Theo? Was the generator his gateway drug?

Rayna watched Theo sorting through the two big bins.

“Plates, cutlery, camping cups, camping stove, spices, wash kit, enviro soap, dish towels, micro towels, sun block, bug spray, rope, clothespins, flyswatter, tarps … We don’t need any of this,” he said more to himself than Rayna.

“I didn’t even know we had any of this,” she said.

Theo stopped what he was doing.

“Sure,” he said, “We’re ready to go camping any time, any place. You can never be too ready.”

He started in on the second bin, flipping open the lid, and placing it on the floor.

“Canned goods — we could use these. And boil-in bag meals — same.” He read one of the bags. “Mmmm. Pasta primavera.”

He started piling the food in neat little piles on the coffee table.

“Theo, we have food. We have a lot of food. Two freezers full of food,” she said, getting a little worried. “And we have the barbeque to cook it on. We’re good.”

“You can never be too prepared, babe.”

He went back to rummaging in the bin.

“Ah, the bear spray.”

He put two canisters on the table with the food.

“Bear spray, Theo? Really? There are no bears in the living room.”

He laughed.  

“I know. It’s just in case things go sideways, and people try to get into the house. I want us to be able to protect ourselves.”

Rayna’s eyebrows shot up. Did Theo think things were go sideways. She surveyed the room. By the looks of it, yup. 

Armageddon, here we come.

“When did you get all this stuff, Theo. I don’t remember discussing most of it. All I remember is you saying that it would be ‘cool’ to go winter camping.”

“Rayna, this is for more than going camping,” he said looking around at his loot. “This is in case we have to bug out.”

She felt that all she was doing was repeating what Theo said to her, but she couldn’t help it.

“Bug out?”

“Yeah. Like if there’s some sort of catastrophic event, like an earthquake, or tornado, or like now. Who knows when the power’s going to be back on? I don’t want us to be stranded or stuck when society breaks down.”

“Theo, are you a prepper?”

“Maybe,” he said, a little contrite. “Just a small one — a mini prepper. I don’t have a bunker, or anything. I like to think of myself as a ‘just in case’ guy, instead of a prepper.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t want us be to stuck in case of an emergency. Like right now. Maybe we don’t need the bear spray, but we can use all the other stuff. We’re going to be safe and comfortable. No one’s going to find our frozen corpses because we weren’t ready.”

“Eww, Theo. There are warming centres. And I’m sure the grid’ll be back soon.”

“Okay, if that’s what you want to believe.”  

Shrugging, he turned back to rummaging in his bin.

“First aid kit! Excellent!”

They spent the next hour organizing their emergency stuff, bringing more wood to the back door, boiling water on the barbeque for tea and coffee, and making breakfast. Just as they were finishing up, there was a knock on their front door.

Theo motioned Rayna to stay in the living room as he cautiously approached the door, looking through the window. He opened the door.

“Bro! I’m ready for Armageddon! We should've bought that bunker!”

It was Theo’s brother Randy, carrying a tent and supplies. He walked in, followed by his Mom and her dog. She was also carrying a tent and sleeping bag. Both were were head lamps, and Randy had a giant hunting knife strapped to his leg.

Who were these people?