Saturday, May 12, 2007

One thing missing

We have very sombre ads here on tv by an actor who used to appear in Shortland St, (probably the most successful tv soap in NZ’s history). In one ad he shows how a family survives in an emergency by being really prepared. They look like a singularly unexcitable family to me, but that’s okay. In other ads, all the services that are usually available, such as fire, ambulance and so on, gradually disappear off the screen behind him, until he’s left in a vast landscape of nothing. The point being that these services may not be available when we need them. In another ad, cars disappear from a motorway he’s standing near, and then a passing train simply vanishes. Very effective ads, as you can see, except that they still haven’t made us do anything about getting an emergency kit together.
We actually brought the beginnings of one at a garage sale one day, and then used up the bits and pieces in it instead of waiting for an emergency. Oh, dear, we’re not very foresighted. We’ll probably be the sorts of people you’ll find begging for food and water in an emergency, while we bleed from copious wounds. Or else, my wife, resilient and resourceful person that she is, will have made do with what’s to hand and we’ll cope.
All this by way of a lead-in to Disaster Kits I saw advertised on the Net. These ones come ready-made in five (!) carry-bags – rather like the bags you use here to take your gear to rugby or swimming. I checked through the ‘over 100 items included’ and do you know what I couldn’t find? Toilet rolls! A slight oversight on the part of the makers, no doubt.

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