Sometimes I wonder if I am the only person who feels the need to be completely prepared for any type of emergency at all times. Or, have I finally crossed the line into full-blown-crazyville? I will let you, my darling readers, decide.
But first, I should probably explain myself. There are two specific reasons for my obsessive compulsive behavior.
1. It’s no secret that I’ve spent most of my life overly concerned with the threat of a fire because I’ve already told you that story. But just to refresh your memory, ever since I was a little girl, before I could go to sleep, I would pack up my favorite things and place them neatly inside of a milk crate. And then I slept with that milk crate while cuddling my beloved items. I performed this ritual every single night – just in case – there was ever a fire and we had to run out of the house; I could easily escape with my milk crate and all of my treasured belongings.
And this went on for years.
In fact, it still kind of does.
Except now I don’t keep my favorite things inside of a milk crate.
Nope.
Now I keep everything I cannot live without inside my gigantic purple pocketbook.
Even though I have never been in a house fire, or even near a house fire, I am constantly obsessed with anything that might have the slightest possibility of suddenly exploding or bursting into flames.
Case. In. Point.
The furnace in my house is an extra special type of furnace. Mostly because it comes with some pretty neat bonus features such as: squealing, screeching, and other horrifying sound effects. The type of sound effects that can, and will, wake you up in the middle of the night, thus compounding your overwhelming irrational fears.
Plus, the way my house is designed, if my furnace were to actually spontaneously combust? Both my son and I would be completely trapped with no way out – unless we jumped out of our second story windows. As clearly demonstrated in the diagram below. Which is precisely why I like having my bag packed, and ready to go, at a moments notice, much like a pregnant woman in her third trimester.
2. I live with some pretty Annoying Medical Conditions. And because of those Annoying Medical Conditions, I never know when I might suddenly have an allergic reaction, or a crohn’s attack, or become violently ill, or be rushed to the hospital, or how long I will be stuck there.
And since there is no way I can last longer than 24 hours without my precious belongings and my homemade survival kits, when I leave the house, even for something as simple as going across the street to CVS to pick up my prescriptions, I bring everything I can. And by everything. I really mean everything.
Let’s take a look INSIDE my pocketbook.
Shall we?
*Not shown here: A complete set of pajamas, a pair of socks, and underwear. Because oddly enough, while those items DO fit inside of my pocketbook, they did NOT fit inside of this photo.
* Also, the red folder contains 968 pages of the novel I am currently working on. And even though I have it saved everywhere: online, in word documents, in emails, and on external hard drives, I still have to carry an actual paper copy of it with me.
And I wonder why my back hurts all the time.
So tell me boys and girls.
What’s in your bag?
And, what would you grab in the event of an emergency?
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