Me: " Huh. They do sell mayo packets in bulk online."
RX: "Relish, too?"
Me: "I'm sure."
RX: "So there will be tuna salad after the apocalypse. I like tuna salad. How much?"
Me: "Twenty-five bucks for, like, 200 two-ounce packets. Wow, four hundred ounces of mayo..."
RX: "How much space will that take up?"
Me: "I dunno. It only says 'Shipping Size: 0.29'."
RX: "Yeah, but 0.29 what?"
Me: "You got me; it doesn't say. Point-two-nine elephants? Point-two-nine breadboxes?"
.29' =
ReplyDeleteCubic Feet.
Go to a restaurant food supply place. Around here they are called Cash and Carry. They sell all the stuff that small restaurants use. Bulk deep fried stuff, 50lb bags of rice, cases of Mexican sodas, bar grade seltzer and soda water, little bags of chips, and little packs of condiments. You lose the satisfaction of watching the UPS guy trudge thru the snow but I like to limit that to firearms, ammo and books anyways.
ReplyDelete(Bar grade seltzer and soda is highly carbonated)
You used to be able to get little things of marmite- like jelly containers. Which means there will be retching and screwed up faces after the apocalypse too.
ReplyDeleteMe, I've got my private stash.
That would be a box measuring about 4" on any side. And +1 on Erik Ordway's suggestion too (for those of us, at least, who's car can carry more than just a designated quantity of ass :)).
ReplyDeleteBulk deep fried stuff, 50lb bags of rice, cases of Mexican sodas, bar grade seltzer and soda water, little bags of chips, and little packs of condiments
ReplyDeleteShoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
I like Gordon Food Service myself. They have all kinds of restaurant grade stuff. They have contributed quite a bit to my post-apocalyptic preparations.
ReplyDeleteWhich raises the question, Crustyrusty, how long do you want to sustain yourself in a post-apocalpytic world?
ReplyDelete"So there will be tuna salad after the apocalypse."
ReplyDeleteIt's important to have priorities.
WV: fishou. Presented without comment.
It's breadboxes.
ReplyDeleteEd Rasimus: Until the first crop of buckwheat is in for flatbread, the first crop of corn for pig and chicken feed, and also corncobs for asswipes (city boys, remember to soak them first).
ReplyDeleteSomething to leaven the endless diet of venison.
The little box will actually be 8" per side for .29 cubic feet.
ReplyDeleteThe arithmatic Nazi.
You'll have to get some sporks to eat your tuna salad with.
ReplyDeleteWV: butiever - I'm just gonna let that one go ...
Restaurant supplies, and Sams Club. It probably varies by area but around here the Bentonville Behemoth has much the fastest turnover, and the freshest grub.
ReplyDeleteLeave the plastic, buy cheap restaurant supply tableware, especially knives and spoons. They are around six bucks of so for three dozen pieces. Most cheap stainless "bread knives" will take a reasonable edge and hold it.
Forks are OK - but spoons are much more versatile. So spoons are the things that get lost.
Stranger
Stranger
I have a folding titanium spork: The official utensil of the apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteApocalypse, as in the Greek for revelation. Puts a whole new shine on the critter, don't it?
ReplyDeleteI used to think the survivalist types were middle-aged, sedentary Mall-Ninjas, and if I had to put a number on the likelihood of a real interregnum I would have picked something in the low single digits.
Meaning something not worth making sacrifices to prepare for. In the very unlikely chance of it's happening I would imagine I would make out if anyone did, simply because I shot better and was a lot meaner than most.
In a scary sort of way, it was a wonderful thing to be young. Now, in late middle age, I notice the national debt is roughly $188,000 per citizen, call it $370,000 per taxpayer, and due to skyrocket over the remaining 30 plus or so years of my probable life.
There isn't enough money in the world to cover even a large fraction of that unfunded debt, and the dollar would be inflated to uselessness long before it could make a dent in the horse pucky that passes for all the Federal government's empty promises to unprepared suckers.
Said inflation would also gut most of our collective 401k's, pensions, savings, home values, you name it.
So, hopefully without being obvious, I've started to check out expiration dates in the Stop & Shop, and to cycle my Spam, corned beef, Canuck 1 pound canned hams, and Campbell's soup through on a 6 month rotation, with them stored in a cool, dry part of the cellar.
Actually, the Canucks are supplying a bigger, 1.5 pound canned ham at the Dollar Store now, for $3.50 per each, sometimes less. Gotta love those government subsidies.
Even paranoids have enemies. I am really uncomfortable around some of the tin hat "survivalist" loonies who actually want it to happen, presumably so their culture-shocked sense of inadequacy will be assuaged. But that doesn't mean they're wrong, dammit.
If it turns out that I'm over- reacting, the only thing that happens is that I saved some money on my chow, .22rf, and primers bill, and have a garage full of linotype bars for a lifetime of bullet casting.
Mayo packets are one thing. What about cream for your coffee? Land O' Lakes "Mini Moos". Half and half that does not require refrigeration.
ReplyDeleteIt was in my hotel room, it must be true. *shrug*
Probably .29 cubic foot.
ReplyDeletewv: "fockinew" hmmm....
Nathan, I have used Coffeemate powder for so long, any of the realer versions of coffee-diluent no longer taste quite right. Sad.
ReplyDeleteWe try to have a couple months' grub at Roseholme; Tam keeps more than that. What happens if we run out before there's any kind of a reboot? --I figure we'll have other worries before then.
WV: "dicule." What happens before ridicule?
Pream is the original and best, by Early California Foods, of which CoffeeMate is but a pale sickly imitation. You cain't get it any more. I have to make do with stuff from cows.
ReplyDeleteNoah D: I bow to your Slim Pickens reference. Long live Slim...and while we're at it, our precious bodily fluids.
ReplyDelete"In a scary sort of way, it was a wonderful thing to be young."
ReplyDeleteWhich is why my survival plans revolve around being highly mobile and highly marriagible.
"We try to have a couple months' grub at Roseholme; Tam keeps more than that. What happens if we run out before there's any kind of a reboot? --I figure we'll have other worries before then."
That's why God made friends and neighbors. Barter with the former; save your ammo for the latter.
Joanna,
ReplyDeleteI'm not worried about superflu or nukyular Armageddon myself; I am worried about inflation or disruptions in the income stream, and it's always nice to eat tomorrow's meals at yesterday's prices.
That's too much to worry about, Tam. Stick with mayo, especially since it is full of fat and hence will soon be outlawed by Mayor Bloomberg. Dig another hole in the basement floor and fill it up with multiple .29s of the stuff.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only dude here old enough to see ".29" and think immediately of airplane engines? Balsa, tissue, Testors, and dope?
"I am worried about inflation or disruptions in the income stream"
ReplyDeleteHence my inclusion of "highly marriagible". :-P