Be Prepared

We’re watching Escape from New York, and J is going through our earthquake kit to make sure that everything is up to date. Actually, that should be earthquake kits. We have a lot of gear.

When I was little, my family lived in Sherman Oaks. I started elementary school, and after a year we moved to Maryland. After a while, I started to wonder: how would all of my classmates in Maryland survive an earthquake, since we never had an earthquake drill? Would I be the only one who knew to get under my desk?

After I got home and confided my concerns, my mother explained that Maryland was not likely to experience any earthquakes. I was skeptical, but as things turned out, she was right. And, of course, I know now that getting under my desk would have been fairly useless as a protective measure.

I don’t know how useful the earthquake kits would be, either. For starters, we’d have to be at home to use them. But better safe than sorry. It may be a cliche, but it’s a pretty harmless one.

And on the plus side, it’s very unlikely that we’ll need to prepare for entering and escaping a prison city.