A few weeks ago I showed the contents of my storm shelter to my rental property manager. To my surprise, along with the spiders and dead leaves and many gallons of water and a few bags, there was a 9-pack of toilet paper.
I almost always buy toilet paper in large quantities. I get nervous when we get down to 8 rolls. But because I have known for years I was going to move this summer, I stopped buying TP in quantity. So the Great Toilet Paper run of 2020 caught me unprepared, and when I wanted to buy 12 rolls (we were down to four, oh horrors), all I could find as a giant 32 roll package at Sam’s Club.
If only I’d known I had 9 (giant) rolls squirreled away. Of course I’d forgotten about them! I hadn’t set eyes on the contents of my storm shelter since last spring, when a tornado warning caught us off guard and we hurried down for long enough to check our devices and ascertain that there was no danger.
I didn’t look around. And I had stocked the storm shelter when I had it put in, January 2014. That was as soon as I could get it done. I bought the house in July 2013, just weeks after the May 20 F5 tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma. There was a long wait list (Oklahomans only really worry about storm shelters when they’ve seen recent local devastation).
Today I decided to clean out the storm shelter.
We’re moving in less than three weeks. The house will be rented out. I didn’t want to leave any free TP. There might be another run on it in the second wave of COVID-19.
(Just kidding. Partly anyway. I am leaving four extra rolls in each bathroom. There’s just something wrong about a house with less than 8 rolls in it).
So what was in the storm shelter?
The Complete List
Comestibles
- Wine (one bottle, with glass and corkscrew that has a bottle opener end)
- Beer
- Root beer
- Five gallons of water and 10 small bottles
- Chips
- Nutter Butters
- Nature Valley Honey Oat granola bars
- Trio bars (those must be old)
- Altoids
- Dog food & dish
- Cat food & dish
Medical supplies
- First aid kit
- Emergency inhaler
- Daily inhaler (that my son no longer needs)
- Antihistamines (3 different types)
- Ibuprofen
- Chap stick
- Emergency foil thermal blankets (three)
- Chlorhexidine wipes (probably for the pets)
Toiletries
- Shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, bar soap
- Tooth paste, dental floss, and tooth brushes (3)
- Body Shop Hemp Body Butter (!!!)
- hair brush and comb
- OCuSOFT lid scrub packets
- Towels (3) and wash clothes (2)
- Baby wipes
- Deodorant wipes
- Deodorant
- Toilet paper!
Clothing
- Underwear (2 pairs for each of us. The boys would not have been able to wear those small sizes now!)
- Socks (one pair for each of us)
- Sweaters (two for me, one for each boy, same size problem)
- Sweat pants (2, for boys), jeans (for me)
- Work gloves for me. Nice ones. Maybe I thought I’d be picking pieces of broken timber up??
- Old tennis shoes for me (I remember tossing them down after I realized I always went down in slippers).
Other stuff
- Paper towels
- Mexican blanket
- Weather radio with crank handle (with all its charging cables for phones etc)
- Pocket knife
- Duct tape
- Bailing twine
- Scissors
- Flash light
- lamp
- matches
- Candles (2)
- Plastic bags
- Extra reading glasses
- cat crate
- bucket
Maybe I am a prepper at heart 😉
I was clearly ready for the coronavirus crisis, even though I don’t buy into conspiracy theories (see my fun blog on the topic!) In fact, I think this list pretty much covers any crisis.
Yes, I’ve always been this way. I came to Oklahoma–where you are supposed to be prepared for tornadoes–from California, where you are supposed to be prepared for earthquakes. I lived in Central America, where you need to be prepared for anything. I’ve always taken it to heart when people say “be prepared.” It’s easy.
A storm shelter just gives you a place to store all your preparedness provisions.
And… I did leave a few provisions for whomever rents the house. After a thorough cleaning!
