Preps can pay off short term too!

Sometimes I don't take my own advice quite as much to heart as I should.  I'm lax about keeping up with my look ahead storage (realized the other day that I only have two extra bottles of dish detergent), sometimes my Honda's gas tank gets down to half full before I fill it and occasionally I even don't know exactly what is in the grab and go bag if I have to bail out on short notice.

This week it has been brought home to me in No....Uncertain....Terms....that it pays to be prepared.

Most of the time I like to think I am as light as a fairy on my feet - graceful, careful and not prone to stumbling around like....er, an old lady.

Last Saturday I blew a hole in that theory that I could have walked through....well, if I hadn't been lying prone...or is it supine?  Anyhow, flat on my face on the porch outside my house.

Still not exactly what went wrong....yeah, I know, I fell,   I mean I'm not sure what the instigating event was.  I suspect it was the old deal where a person thinks they can take the dog out on a leash, open the door to do that and talk on the phone all at the same time.  At least one of those didn't work.

I fell flat on my face...actually trending more to my right side, hit my head a resounding whack on the porch, knocked the breath out of myself to the point where I couldn't even gasp cause that required more breath than I had and lay there like the proverbial fish out of water.

However, I did not drop the leash!

Gathered myself up, completed the "take the dog out" maneuver and put an ice pack on my head.  Friends were dropping by and hung around long enough to be sure my eyes were still the same size etc and that I wasn't going to become an inert lump on the floor.

I'll keep the rest relatively short - I hurt, I hurt a lot....couple days go by I don't hurt so much until I coughed.  Then I felt like someone who really disliked me had stuck a knife in my back...repeatedly.  Perfectly in time with the coughs.

So go to the Redi-Care, get poked and prodded and xrayed all to find out I have three broken ribs. Reasonable I suppose...most anything would break if I hurled myself onto it!..

The point is (drum roll as long as you do it, I can't move that fast) that I have enough food and meals so I don't have to go anywhere for a few days.  My friend brought me milk and half and half but otherwise I'm all set for the duration and so is the dog.  Might have to make an emergency trip for fresh vegetables and wine but otherwise I'm good to go.

If I was as slack about food as I am about some things I'd be, to put it impolitely, screwed...and hungry or, worse yet, dependent on the kindness of others!  And we all know how New Englanders love having to ask for help...not!

So, especially if you live alone, think on this.  It doesn't have to be a disaster to leave you wishing that you had a few groceries and maybe a bandaid or two (did I mention my scraped knuckles?) as well as perhaps an ice pack in the freezer.

So think ahead at least short term, ok?  And keep track of your feet better than I did this time around!