Grandma Bought Me a Gerber

When pursuing knives at the Exchange, my grandma only giggled when I pointed out the small gerber (accompanied by a multi-tool contraption) I wanted for Christmas. She bounced off to find a bored sales associate to open the lock preventing me from clutching the blade with my greedy paws. My mother, a bit less enthusiastically, placed my other survival gift (a nifty fire-starter) into the cart and asked if she should be worried about her children's seemingly sudden preoccupation with blades, camping gear, and wilderness techniques. I explained how years of living with a marine (my father) has always encouraged a general interest in survival for my brother and I regardless of our current living conditions. He does also work in a camping store and I in the imagination.

Oddly enough or rather given my long lasting love for the macabre, she firmly placed my fire-starter thing (I'm sure it has a real, more serious sounding name) and a twin of it in the cart for my brother. Still not quite reassured, I gently noted that it's not as if we were buying solely gear for a zombie apocalypse (though of course I'm now running scenarios of my awesomeness through my mind about starting fires and cutting important things and of course zombies). Having recently prepped for the hurricane season, I told her it was always good to just be prepared for any emergency. You won't think you are so silly when you actually need that strong toothed cutter thing or a zombie comes barreling down the hall intent on snacking on your sinew (Maybe I left that last part out while comforting her). 

It is interesting though how we "worry" about those who prep for emergencies. In some ways, one does not want to be that person who wasted precious time and resources planning for an event so terribly unlikely to occur. Perhaps, though, this smacks more of complacency or even naivety. It is probably pretty obvious I live in North America where the majority knows little of survival or suffering. I don't mean to say we are all so ignorant as I do know several individuals who understand much about pain, poverty, and starvation in my neck of the woods (more than I ever have). I am just not sure most of us do--at least not according to our popular culture.  Maybe we know more than we pretend we do. I hope that will help us. 

In the mean time, I'll continue collecting my knives and other odds and ends of knowledge. Have you, phantom readers, been mocked for your preparations? Or, do you think under the rumble or ridicule, those who make fun are strangely relieved that some one has taken initiative?