In the hopes of generating some more, and hopefully humorous, activity on our TP Chron forum, I present the following observation of my own brand-new, Y2K induced behavior.

As the uneventful rollover begins to fade into the past, I have found myself reflecting upon some of the actions I took in order to be prepared for the worst. While I couldn't justify a massive investment in beans and rice, as many of my fellow preppers seem to have done, I did put a significant amount of thought and effort into the procurement and proper storage of that marvel of modern technology, toilet paper. You see, the decision against beans and rice, especially beans, other than the fact that I don't partake of either in "real" life, was largely driven by the perceived relationship between bean consumption and toilet paper depletion. I have been blessed/cursed? with a "rapid transit system" and the addition of a dietary item reputed to speed up that train just had no place in my repetoire(sp?). Especially in the absence of any effective way to collect and properly store the methane-like gas that I am lucky enough to produce almost at will.

Getting back to TP, however. Here we are in February now. I am still somewhat of a doomer, although Y2K as the driving force behind that doom is beginning to be replaced by the more mundane concerns of oil, bubble.com, corrupt .gov, etc. My new-found security, in the form of my Y2K preps, has morphed into my new way of life. I find myself continually descending to basement to lovingly caress my impressive Tower of Rolls. I recently had to make a late-night emergency trip to the grocery store to restock as my wife (WHAT was she thinking??!!) nonchalantly, and seemingly without a full understanding of what she was doing, removed a 12-pack from the summit. Whew! Thank God the store was open! I replaced the Jewel at the top of my TP crown and all was again right with the world.

On a serious note, prepping was the right thing to do...and continues to be. It may seem a bit funny now, and some of us may feel a bit sheepish about it; I know I do. But now that I did it, whatever the reasons, dammit, it feels good! Embrace your preps! Build your own Towers! The world is still a dangerous place!

Love & Peace to All!

Jimmy

-- Jimmy Splinters (inthe@dark.com), February 10, 2000

Answers

toilet paper sure has consumed a lot ofpecious time @our house..Living in rather small quarters,we stored toilet paper towels,kleenex, charcoaland some other items out in our utility room, About a month ago I had to purcase a new washing machine the day it was to be delivered I thought of all that stuff stored out there and figured I just didn't need any more snickers, so removed all 400 rolls of T.P. 200 rolls of P.T. 300 lbs.of charcoal and 40 boxes of klennex,and tho not heavy, took considerable time, not knowing where to put all this stuff ,stackd it up outside behind the house until after delivery was made. forgot the water shutoff was out back.....yes the hee haws were profound, they knew exactly what I had done and we all had a good chuckle...they put it all back for me and confided that they knew why I'd moved it, as they had preped also and have been getting ribbed ever since. The thing is that they, as I am not sorry,and feel pretty good about it except for the guffaws I guess we all encounter. Will always but prepared for anything that comes along, short of being nuked...God forbid. (first post, forgive any spelling errors....am nervous ).......Jan

-- Jan Heimer (jheimer@webtv.net), February 15, 2000.

Jan,

LOL! (That's Laughing Out Loud for you newbiers than me).

I also had a similar dilemma recently when having the furnace guy over for maintenance. Since it was a major effort to move all my preps, as you well know, I decided to leave them in place. Furnace guy raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. I imagine I have become the "resident kook" around the oil company's water cooler! Oh, well.

Jimmy

-- Jimmy Splinters (inthe@dark.com), February 15, 2000.

Jan and Jimmy,

You would be absolutely AMAZED if you knew how many people were "squirreling" away stuff like this and told NO ONE! That's why I coined the phrase: "The Y2k Underground." Anyone who "rat-holed" anything because of Y2k--without publicly explaining the reasons for doing so--qualifies as a member of the "Y2k Underground."

Chuck Lanza, a respected emergency services professional in Florida, referred to this very phenomenon in some of his "pre-rollover writings," when he spoke about the number of letters he received from people who took the Y2k preparedness warnings seriously (Good Lord, who could blame them--considering what we were ALL told by legitimate sources) but whose spouses thought the effort ridiculous.

Now, "Y2k Retrovision"--another phrase coined by me--hey, you heard it here first--might make us all believe we were stupid. As they say--hindsight is 20/20. But I know in my heart that many people made logical decisions to prepare for Y2k, based upon the best information they had at the time. This was not wrong.

Without going further at the moment, I have to tell you that I "belly-laughed" at both of your posts, and trust me, I'm laughing with you--not laughing AT you.

As for me--well--without revealing too much at this present time (you'll get to read all later, especially when I revise Chapter One) in my basement I have an assortment of items that are stored in what we at my house call "the toy room," so named because it was where we we stored my "rug rat's" toys when they were outgrown. (I was forbidden--since said rug rat was old enough to speak--from giving away ANY of them.)

Accordingly, one might rightly label me a "Salvation Army Smuggler."

I "smuggled" the toys out early in 1999, and guess what took their place? Details later!

In the meantime, welcome aboard Jan. You will find friends here (more and more of them, I suspect once the "I told you so" crowd gets so bored they finally put a "sock in it." :)

Blessings.

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), February 15, 2000.