They
say that idle hands are the devil’s play things. And I think that is true of
the mind as well. Back when Zero Hour hit, we had a lot to do when it came to
barricading the store and getting everything safe against a full frontal
assault on the store. Even after we were barricaded inside and things were
safe, we had inventory to take. We needed to know how much product we actually
had on hand and if it would be enough for us to last through our Year One Plan.
Then there were modifications that had to be made to the store for showers and
toilet schedules and where we were going to sleep and the rules for posting watches
during the night. I would say in that first month, we barely had time to
breathe, much less time to pause and reflect. Then major events kept occurring.
New members and refugees kept showing up.
But
now, we have our systems down and people have started falling into a routine. I
think people have come to grips with this reality and they are starting to
accept the world that we live in. And now that the store is pretty much running
on autopilot and we have all of our routines down, there are times where you
can sit back and reflect. This is a dangerous thing to do because it can drive
you crazy.
Let
me see if I can just recount a small section of people close to me. My sister
and her three kids are down in Oklahoma City. My dad is in Europe stationed at
an Air Force base in Germany. My sort-of parents-in-law were on vacation in
Tunica, Mississippi. My brother-in-laws were at a hospital and an elementary
school over in Pryor. Have any of these cherished loved ones lived? And these
are all people that I talked or Facebooked or emailed with on pretty much a
daily basis. Where are they now? Do they need my help?
I
want you to try to imagine the logistics of trying to get to my dad in Germany.
He might as well be on the moon. So all you can do is just sit in your own
shelter and continue to ride it out. Yes, I could probably take an armed escort
and get to my brother-in-law’s house but is he even there? And if he is not and
we lose someone to a bite in the process, how could I possibly justify that
expenditure of resources and man power to the group? The intentions are noble
but the risk is too great for a reward that is so improbable.
So
all you can do is sit, wait it out, and survive. And then you look around and
we still have power, water, food, weapons… For all things considered, we are
living high on the hog right. But right now, there could be a single mother
with two kids, trapped in an attic, slowly rationing out the last can of Spam
and drinking water collected from a gutter. That is the thing that pisses me
off. It is my natural inclination to help those people… but we can’t.
We
are not the military. We don’t have armored Humvees and proper training to go
out on rescue missions. We are offering food and shelter to any that happen to
come along but I feel that is not enough.
Psychologists
talk all the time about closure. I guess not knowing is the worst thing of all.
If I knew for certain that Rammstein Air Force Base had fallen, I could move on
and stop thinking about him. Oklahoma City has been overrun. We know that. But
did Piedmont fall too? It is that not knowing that just kills you…
