Funny thing, the other day I was wanting to buy tofu curd... (I will try the Japanese food store next).
I walked into a store called “Emergency Essentials”, it's in the same complex as my favorite store “Sunshine” (actually the store is named Sunflower Market but called Sunshine by me). Anyway, I walked in to “Emergency Essentials” and asked; “Do You Sell Tofu Curd?” The answer was “No”. Then the man behind the counter went on “I will look in the computer to see if we can get it”. And then another “No.”
Being in an unhurried
mood, I began browsing the store, which was small enough that I was
never out of view of the front counter. I Magellaned the store and
was soon near the front again at the book section.
After seeing bins,
boxes and shiny bags of supplies for hoarding and surviving, I was
standing, book in hand, reading an article on how to build a nuclear
fallout shelter and stash food and supplies in the mountains. I
noticed the pictures were old and the captions alarming so I flipped
to the inside cover. And saw the publication date of 1977.
I
then looked directly at the front counter and the two store keeps
were looking at me.
I was wearing a home spun vegetable dyed hat that Lorrie says looks like rasta hair and my D.I. bike was leaning against the front window. To break the silence I said impulsively but matter of factly; “Are you expecting a Nuclear Holocaust?”
I
held up the large blue book with bold printing on the front.
HOW
TO PREPARE FOR A NUCLEAR EVENT .
The larger of the two burly men answered:
“No we're Not...but there is a lot of good information
in there”. The other man nodded his head loudly and I left.
Not sure how this benefited me or how it may have
affected them as the exchange was neither confrontational or
particularly pragmatic... Just a question; Just an answer, but now
in the quiet moments I begin to ponder. What is my position on
life's continuum...Observation tells me, some folks teeter at the
brink of imminent doom while still others are securely grounded by a
blissful unawareness of how this moment may not connect to the next.
Growing up “being prepared” was to be prepared
physically mentally and spiritually. And now some 35 years later I
asked strangers what I may well have sincerely asked of my parents or
even an esteemed church member. When does the world end?
It's
3:30 in the afternoon on April 17th
2012 and as I write I recall that some ancient revelator by name of
Nostradamus may have predicted doomsday to be close to this moment.
But I'm thinking about how routine my life has become. And how
routine actually provides freedom because it affords me both the time
and the grounding necessary to think, feel and understand. And to
unnecessary provoke strangers.
