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Roger Rabbits with |
The phones pinged at 6.30am. A National Emergency Management Agency alert. Strong currents and surges. Why does it sound so much more urgent and scary in the dark and quiet of the night?
Sleep’s broken and nerves jangled.
In one househousehold a eight-year-old “disaster warden” ran around sounding the alarm, raising the roof. And a few laughs. “There’s a Salami coming everyone!” she wailed. “There’s a Salami coming!”
Yep, a large, rogue, 8.8 on the Richter scale, spicy Italian sausage was rolling menacingly our way. Break out the olives, cheese, and crackers. An antipasto breakfast in bed.
Of course, it was a wee girl’s delightful muddling of words. There was no salami. No tsunami.
And all because a well-intentioned mother had earlier explained to the girls, very judiciously, so as to inform and not to frighten, what a previous NEMA alert was about. What to expect, and what to do, if a tube of cured meats did rush ashore.
It reminded me of a call from London in the dead of night a few months ago. From another “wee girl”. “Where are you?” At precisely 2.07am on a Monday, where did she think I was? Pouring out of a nightclub?
She’d received an advisory that a tsunami was closing on the east coast of New Zealand, closing in on me. “Get up the hill! Don’t wait!” So I didn’t.
Get gone!
And as I sat alone on the bank, in deathly dark, and anxious quiet, awaiting Armageddon, I sensed either all Tauranga had fled town, or I was the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust, or everyone else was still asleep. There was no wall of water coming through the cutting, so I too went back to bed.
That got a few of us asking about evacuation plans. When should we “get gone”? Where do we “get gone” to? Do we have a survival kit? And that raised this question.
What’s the one special, indulgent, selfish thing you’d put in that kit? All the practical, responsible stuff aside – like water, knife, torch, spare batteries, matches, medications, socks.
The ”salami” monitor would pack her Hubba Bubba and soccer ball. Survival essentials! And her sister would nab her iPad and two-minute noodles. You get to see what’s important to people.
“Hair straightener,” came back quick as a flash. “I wouldn’t be caught out with frizzy hair at some evacuation centre, where I might be might recognised.” I hoped it was a joke, but I suspect it wasn’t.
How do you bottle up the euphoria-inducing aroma of spices, herbs, garlic, ginger and caramelising onions that wafts down Bureta Rd as the curry house fires up in the evening? That’s why a chicken Biryani would be packed first in my survival kit. And no sharing. And if I passed over to the other side, I would carry the memory of that aroma with me, because who knows what the food’s going to be like.
Bloody pain!
“Kit? Don’t you mean survival CUPBOARD?” said the Mum of teenagers. “A survival cupboard full of food, because the kids are a bloody pain when they’re hungry. Like a day at the zoo.” The kids would prefer to put the “instant” back in instant noodles and chow down on dry noodles. True! As they come. Dry!
A Mount couple actually have an evacuation plan. “We’d put on our wetsuits, in case our escape involved swimming, and pack a couple of reds.” Good ones because if it’s the end you don’t want to be drinking rubbish. “The Bengal cat would go into a cage on our bikes and we’d cycle to the safety of the Mount.” In an emergency, there’s no point trying to escape the Mount in a car. Hope the moggy appreciates its place in the plan.
It wouldn’t guarantee survival, but one bloke, and it would have to be a bloke, would first pack his souvenir Olympic rowing eight oar, and 1967 Beatles tour programme. They would be loaded into his 1986 BMW. “Because the car’s a gem, a collector’s piece.” And his wife? “I’d grab her first.” She would go into the “gem” along with the oar and programme. A gem in a gem.
Perfect combo
“Aah! Great question,” responded bloke number two. Great question to which he gave great consideration. “I’d sort the kids first. Then a substance. A herb. Or a bottle of whiskey. They would both be up there.” Perhaps both, the perfect combo in the circumstances. “If you are going to get wiped out by a big wave, there may as well be acceptance and calm.”
As, observed an entrepreneur, don’t forget the bartering power of both those in a crisis economy.
Some other non-negotiables for survival kits…a six-pack of Guarana energy drink. “It’s a s*#++y day if I don’t have one. If I was about to die in a tsunami, it would be a doubly s*#++y day, so…” Hiss, pop, crack.
Beef tallow., said another. You can cook with it, eat it. And it’s great for skin care and hair care. Suppose it’s important to be looking your best when a significant planetary event is going down and life as you know it is done.