Why Are Emergency Survival Kits Hilarious?

To me, anyway.  I always end up laughing.

My studio at the moment

We're having some construction done on the house this week, and there's stuff from the bedroom parked all over my studio.  I can't quilt in there, so I  decamped to the kitchen and made a list of long-procrastinated tasks I could attack.

First, I should update our emergency kit, which in this area means "earthquake kit."  We live two blocks from the notorious Hayward Fault.  Our block has an emergency plan that involves two buried plastic barrels of supplies and all-inclusive emergency staffing assignments (I'm on the newsletter committee). 

Each household is supposed to have an earthquake kit, and Jerry and I have tried, tried, to do the right thing, but we deal with our kit decade-ly.  Our food, water, and batteries are way out of date.  We'd be pathetic in an emergency.

Right now, our "kit" is piled on the floor of the downstairs hall closet:

 Not exactly grab-and-run

Each time our local NPR station has a pledge drive, they offer emergency kits as a bonus if you donate enough money.  I wanted a closer look, so I made a note of the company that supplies this bonus,  Emergencykits.com, and this morning I checked out the website.

Oh, my God, I laughed!  I kept making trips into Jerry's study to tell him about it.  He was not as amused, although he agreed that buying a kit made more sense than using our haphazardly packed bags of stuff.

I studied the various possibilities.

First off, I decided that I'd like a kit that includes a toilet, however sketchy.  That means a bucket with a snap-on toilet lid.   Here's a kit with a bucket toilet, tricked out with supplies for two people for 72 hours:

 The Home Base Emergency Kit, $119.99

With this kit you get packets of food, pouches of water, and a hand-crank/solar radio.  Other items include  "moiste" [stet] towelettes; a Swiss Army-Like Knife (I love the "like") with 17 functions; and duct tape, which is Jerry's fix-it method of choice.

If we think we can't manage to wrest all that out of the front hall closet, we could buy a backpack of stuff and hide it somewhere outdoors (where?).  This kit includes have a 2-person tube tent, which I know would make me claustrophobic, but no toilet.  It weighs 16 pounds, but you can get a rolling backpack, which solves that problem.

The Home Emergency Kit: $109.99

Note the tube tent on the right.

I was all set to order one of these kits, when I thought to check out online reviews.  At Ready Set Go, I found this highly-rated kit, which to my surprise includes a deck of cards.  A deck of cards!  For the truly blase disaster survivor:

 On sale for $119.99.  The glove is very OJ.

I went back to Emergencykits.com and  came across my very favorite item of all,  "The GO Anywhere Portable Toilet," otherwise known as "The PETT."   
 

This item is described as "thoughtfully engineered."  It folds up into a case and weighs only 8 pounds.  Also, "it... can support up to to 500 pounds...It's even stable on uneven ground."  All this for only $69.99.

If modesty is a concern, there's always this option:

The shrouded PETT

When I saw this picture I had to push back from my computer, convulsed with laughter.  I mean, honestly!

Is it black humor?  Lack of imagination? Displaced anxiety?  Maybe what I'd really like to do is empty the hall closet of coats and shoes and load it up with photos, quilts, travel journals, oh, and maybe a few moths for Jerry to fool around with.

Whatever.  I just hope I can wedge my antidepressants into the Hygiene Kit.