I just though of a few items I would loke to have in store by 2000.

1. fire extinguisher(S) With people scrambling to heat thier homes with anything they can find I am sure house fires will be greatly increased. So for you or your neighbors I would have a few on hand.

2. Medical supplies to treat burns. As above many will be dealing with hot items(stoves, lanterns,etc..) burns will happen!

3. carbon monoxide detectors. Make sure you crack your windows a bit!

4. Beano - after eating all those beans and having the whole extended family sleeping in the one warm room of your house.???!!!! This could ensure the success or failure of your survival!!!

Mike

-- mike (justmike11@yahoo.com), November 04, 1998

Answers

Potholders. Chopsticks. Elastic hair ties. Sushi makings (alternative to plain rice, folks; you can fill them with veggies). Cat hairball medicine.

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), November 05, 1998.

"1. fire extinguisher(S) With people scrambling to heat thier homes with anything they can find I am sure house fires will be greatly increased. So for you or your neighbors I would have a few on hand. "

I have had some in my house for as long as I can remember (and have them checked anually), but excellent suggestion!

"2. Medical supplies to treat burns. As above many will be dealing with hot items(stoves, lanterns,etc..) burns will happen! "

Again, something I have always had, but another excellent suggestion

"3. carbon monoxide detectors. Make sure you crack your windows a bit! "

Have you found any battery operated ones? The only ones I have ever seen plug into a wall socket

"4. Beano - after eating all those beans and having the whole extended family sleeping in the one warm room of your house.???!!!! This could ensure the success or failure of your survival!!! "

ROFL, but it could also be a new power source;)

"Potholders. Chopsticks. Elastic hair ties. Sushi makings (alternative to plain rice, folks; you can fill them with veggies). Cat hairball medicine. "

All good. (Except I don't have a cat so I think I will pass on the last one!;) And chopsticks are not for everyone sadly. Although I have been using the same pair for quite awhile and am pretty good with them. Is a good idea

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), November 05, 1998.

Why is it that an Oriental will use chopsticks to eat noodle soup, and then go out and use a shovel to dig in his garden?

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), November 05, 1998.

No you normally use a spade to dig, and a shovel to shovel. Well we do over here, we have a lot of clay. We don't have those odd long-handled pointed things.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), November 05, 1998.

baby wipes for personnel hygiene...you know, that way you don't have to use too much of your water up for bathing. I have seen battery- operated carbon-minoxide detectors at the store, or you could buy a canary.... Don't forget chocolate anything, and pear-flavored Jelly Belly's.

-- madeline (runner@bcpl.net), November 09, 1998.

One thing I do not see mentioned much, even on Y2K preparedness sites, is taking a thorough first aid and CPR course! I went to Half- Price Books and bought 5 up-to-date first aid manuals, including the official Red Cross one and even a training textbook for EMT's (not that I will have their equipment). My husband and I have been stockpiling a HUGE first aid kit for about two months...I even have my neighbors in mind with this....everything imaginable in it. I just had my appendix out (ruptured) and the idea of no dependable medical services scares the heck outta me. I would have died b/c of that infected appedix if it had happened 50 years ago....or about a year and two months from now?????

So learn, learn, learn all you can about first aid, CPR, mouth-to mouth, treating burns, etc. This kind of info can always come in handy anyway.

-- Quietly Preparing (bill_n_kellie91@hotmail.com), November 09, 1998.

Hi Kellie, glad you made it thru your surgery AOK. A Hospital is a scary place.
We were relieved recently when somebody finally wrote exactly what it's like, with residual guilt and lingering horror, to witness and "allow" modern "medicine," accepted by everyone else in their hypnotized go-along with the trends, "the Drs must know what they're doing"
Ashton and I just finished working at a University Hospital overtime for 7 months, a great modern expensive institution rated among the best and highest with smart young doctors training and extensive research going on all the time.
And what we saw was assembly line slaughter, butchery of the innocent
Experimentation and blundering gone awry
Horrendous hideous things behind patient curtains
Assisting hasty young residents in the middle of the night with "emergency" surgeries right in the patient's room
Seeing trauma patients fresh from rendering accidents
Hands-on care of transplant patients
Amputees
Machines
Tubes and hoses and pumps worming in every possible crevice and surgical opening like so many snakes devouring the mangled dying flesh
Yes, it's not in the newspapers, but body parts are plucked from those still fading warm and sewed onto those whose extremeties are cooling ...
We watched organ harvesting
We saw things worse than we could ever imagine
And everyone else just placidly going thru the mechanics and never questioning anything
Working with android robotic nurses and arrogant power-mad Doctors
Who turned petty viscious at any hint of moral or ethical consideration
All that mattered was shutting up and getting that paycheck and holding onto vested pension
Calculated cruel abandonment and torture of the dying, secret malicious preying upon the helpless
Stupendous uncaring and cruelty and mean brutal craving to carve with the knife and slash and puncture and noone to question or defend or advocate or protect, no oversight
When we got through our own horror and disbelief and peer pressure and denial and the propaganda and media hype about the great shining institution on the hill
We quit

We worked on the Cancer Care Unit
We were especially trained in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit
We were floated everywhere else in the Hospital to work, with no training or preparation

This Hospital is running on Win3.1, say they may have time and resources to upgrade to Win95 maybe in 2001, and have no clue about Y2K, embedded systems in IV pumps, ventilators, etc. There's a lot of computerized equipment. They looked at us with mockery and ricidule when we tried to bring up preparing for the future and caring about the patients. They feel they are too stressed trying to make ends meet. It is perpetually short-staffed. It is true they are all doing their best. But I will not be anywhere near a hospital from November 1999 on until things settle down (whenever ifever that m

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), November 09, 1998.

Welcome back, Madeline!

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), November 09, 1998.

I keep thinking of situations where I could use a block and tackle.

-- Shimrod (Shimrod@lycosmail.com), January 09, 1999.

Shimrod,

Contemplating items required for a personal and "long distance" neighborhood aqueduct.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 09, 1999.

Not too seroiusly: "But Diane, is the aquaduct for water coming or going?"

Add medical (or medicine cabinet) and "bathroom" consumeables not major enough to include in a first aid kit: band-aids, aspirin, cold or minor "flu" remedies, hand soap, foot powder (or equal), toothpaste, lotions, etc. Example - take what's in there now, figure out whether you would rather "have it" or "forget it" over a 2-3-4-5 month period (based onyour own prep needs).

If the answer is "yes - I'd want it - then get it over the next 8 months.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 09, 1999.