Recently, I asked Dan a very important and non-hypothetical question. “If a major natural disaster was about to strike and you had only 30 minutes to prepare, what 5 things would you save?”
Now, I’m a self-proclaimed packrat. I usually save far too many things that I hold dear or that I think will come in handy someday, only to find, years later, that I haven’t thought about them once and that they never did become useful to me again. It wasn’t until this last move that I finally pilfed a lot of items that I’d been carrying around with me through the last 17 times I moved house since 1992…
♪ There’s a voice, that keeps on calling me. Down the road, is where I’ll always be. Every stop I make, I’ll make a new friend… ♪ Ahem. You get the point.
Anyway, it was exilarating. And liberating. And a little sad. I admit it wasn’t easy to part with my sticker book (complete with scratch and sniffs), Monchichi figurines and a box load of stuffed animals (Ok, I sent those to my mom’s – I wasn’t quite ready to part with them yet…). But along with those items, Dan and I brought multiple carloads of junk to the Goodwill and haven’t looked back since. To be honest, I can’t specifically remember what we got rid of, which speaks volumes to me of the significance of those items in the first place.
All this to say that when we were talking about the 5 things we’d save as the world was coming to an end…we both scratched our heads. Were any material things important enough to carry around with us on our raft built from Ikea furniture? So here’s what I finally came up with:
(By the way, I decided not to count clothes because I doubt I’d actually pack a bag. But I do admit that I’d put on a few layers of my favourite pieces, one of which may include my wedding dress. 😐 )
1. The pets (and Dan). I was hoping they would count as one *thing*, and since it’s my game, I get to make the rules.
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2. Our wedding photos. Or as many photos as we could squeeze onto CDs before we had to evacuate. It would be hard parting with any at all…But the reality is that our Ikea raft wouldn’t keep much dry (obviously I’m assuming that there natural disaster would include massive amounts of water…).
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3. Mr. Nanook. An obvious choice.
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4. My camera. How to keep it dry? Still in question. A large Ziploc baggie perhaps?
Number 5 was hard to narrow down. Not because there were too many choices, but because I kept asking myself if there was even one more small thing that I would waste my time looking for before leaving. And then practicality sunk in.
5. My passport or Driver’s License. How else would they identify me when my drenched, unconcious body washed up in a wedding dress?
What 5 things would you take?
Kris - You’re so creative. I want to blog-lift this idea for my five things…is that incredibly tacky? I just don’t have any blogging ideas today. :-I
Shannen - Lift all you want…I’m glad you like the idea. 🙂
dan - There are very few things in life that aren’t replaceable. I have to agree with your first two (literally. I’d get in trouble if I didn’t 😉 ), but after that I have a hard time justifying anything else. CD’s? They can be replaced. Books? Same thing. I might rescue a 2 volume set of books called “The Way Things Work”, which I received as a gift from my grandpa. Some sentimental value. My acoustic guitar hasn’t seen much play in recent years but it is valuable to me. And there is a small stack of old family photo albums that I borrowed from mom and have to give back to her that are irreplaceable.
So: more photos, a couple books, and a guitar, to go along with the pets and the wedding photos 🙂