The Grass is Greener

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: boondocks, road trip, tires, trampoline, yours

they were submitted by: https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

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I live in the country in the middle of nowhere really. The technical town listed on my address (and I live outside the city limits there anyway) has a population of 298 people. 298. Sure, it's quiet. It can be a little boring. But I've always been a bit thankful for that and the fact that we live far away from any really large metropolitan area. I've seen horror movies. I don't want to be trapped in a huge city with everyone competing for life and resources. I mean, have you seen the walking dead? atlanta is NOT where anyone wants to be when shit goes down, man. So here are some pro (ok that's questionable) life tips from someone who's been living in bumfuck nowhere for all her life and who might have read a post apocalyptic novel or two. or few. 

Post Apocalyptic Guide to Living In the Boondocks

1. I mean, wait. Unless we’re talking about an economic collapse, it’s probably going to be contained well before it gets to my place or yours. You don’t even have a Target store, so you probably won’t have to worry about, you know, roving bands of hungry urbanites looking for, I don’t know, corn or cows or the folks from Wrong Turn for awhile. You’ve got awhile to make a plan. Smoke some weed and craft some shit. We got this.

2. Your basic supplies will be covered by the stores you can find even in the boondocks, but you may want to take a road trip early on to get more complicated stuff that you didn’t panic buy online. Might be worth traveling for a sporting goods or camping store to be better prepared.

3. Prepare a bug out bag just in case you need to travel. First aid, fire starters, meds, a dry bag, thermos, life straw, etc. also definitely bring some kind of protection. Apparently people like Alex Jones are just looking for any excuse to eat their neighbors’ asses, and you have to fight them off at all costs unless that’s your kink then more power to you.

******If you want to try to stay in one place, do the following as soon as you start to worry. If not, uh…good luck.

4. Get an old trampoline. It’s good for building a pretty cheap coop for chickens, guinea, and ducks. The eggs are good for protein to trade and eat, and if needed the birds themselves will be good food. Consider larger animals if you have the space. Or have a couple pigs and a goat in the house. No one’s judging anymore. Live your Dr. Doolittle fantasies in real life. At least it will give you someone to talk to. and sure, yeah, i probably spend way too much time talking to my animals already, but whatever. I'm well prepared.

5. Use as much of your land as possible for a garden. Go ahead and till it now, throw down some black plastic to make sure everything is dead, then add nutrients to the soil and prepare it for veggies. Also buy some older fruit trees and plant so you may have fruits in the next year or so. Garden naked. Get dirty. Rub yourself with tomato plants and commune with the harvest goddesses. You’re going to need all the help you can get.

6. Maybe make an obstacle course? Get some tires for, like, cardio or whatever and some rope to climb or to spice things up with the last few tinder dates you manage to squeeze in. Might as well live it up while you can. If you’ve spent most of your nights rewatching The Office for the 30th time while you scroll through the same three apps on a loop every ten minutes because there is literally nothing else within a 100 mile radius of your house except the dairy farm that you’re pretty sure is ruining your lungs and definitely ruined the spring days with the windows open thing, then you might want to physically prepare. Do I know how to do this? No. But I'm sure you can youtube it?

7. Set up some traps. For people or monsters. I don’t know. It seems like fun when Fred does it in Scooby Doo.

8. Build a persona as the weird witch or wizard or oracle (or if you’re me, you’ve had this down for YEARS). Creep your house out. Put signs in the yard about reading auras or some shit. Use some trickery to make people BELIEVE it. You know what’s going to happen. You have all the best treatments. A, you can barter the fuck out of this. B, if you see anyone not from the area migrating to build something new, scare the shit out of them. Grab their arm and search their palm then scream about doom until they leave. Resources are scarce. Ok, unless they’re nice or whatever and then I guess maybe they can learn how to make soap.

9. Learn new stuff. Seriously. I think everyone should do this anyway. If you are unable, that’s one thing, but if you can, learn to knit or sew or make your own bread. It’s so gratifying to make a new recipe work with what you have on hand or to be able to patch up your own clothes or make your own masks right now. With the right tools, you can make everything you can’t get your hands on, and that’s always a plus. Also, learn how to just sit with yourself. Mindfulness. Awareness. Love yourself. Not like that. Okay, like that too. That’s always fun. But love your entire being. If the shit hits the fan, you need to be able to fuck shit up not be fucked up, so do the work when at all possible. You’re the best you that you’ve got or whatever I read on that photo of a beachy sunset that one time I accidentally added a Susan to my facebook.

10. Buy some books. You’re going to miss tv. And some days your own head isn’t going to be a safe space even when you’ve done the work, so yeah you might want to pretend you’re a pirate kidnapping a princess or Walt Longmire or a tiny kitten who gets lost or whatever and that’s ok. Escaping is good too. Make sure you include the Discworld series because it’s fucking amazing.

That's all I've got. I mean, we're all doomed if it gets any more serious than this first wave of corona anyway, but it's nice to think we might be prepared I guess. Good luck out there. Might want to check into moving to the boondocks asap. At least you can prolong your exposure!

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo https://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/

Follow Me Home https://followmehome.shellybean.com

Climaxed https://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

My Life After https://www.mylifeafterblog.blogspot.com

Southern Belle Charm https://www.southernbellecharm.com

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/