I stopped at Trader Joe’s (Chicago River North location) after work and it was basically the fall of Saigon in there. No carts, shelves cleared, people on edge…I walked right out without buying anything and got my ass out of the city, I tell you what.

Things are scary right now. Schools and large events are getting shut down, businesses are converting to telecommuting, and we still don’t entirely know the extent of the situation and what the results will be. We’re looking towards a few weeks/months of relative isolation. And if things go really bad, I think we can tell from the response to Katrina, Puerto Rico, etc that we probably shouldn’t expect to be rescued.

For the record, I don’t things are going to get to “fall of civilization, all of a sudden it’s Mad Max out there” scenario. It is a possibility.

You’re also not going to be trapped in your house/apartment. We’re not running from zombies here, we just want to avoid crowds and traveling. Thank god it’s not dead of winter and we can go outside. So yes, you can walk your dog.

Prepping 101

I’m going to let you in on a secret. I’m a closet prepper. I have a bug out bag, I always keep my car with more than a half tank of gas and I have self stable rations. I’ll allow that some of it is due to growing up in the shadow of the Cold War and expecting nuclear war to break out at any time. But also I grew up on a farm and that’s sort of what you do. We don’t get hurricanes or earthquakes in Northwest Indiana, but we to get lots of snow and cold and it’s nice to not have to leave the house if I don’t have to sometimes.

A lot of prepping is common sense. Some basic things you should have on hand:

1. Canned goods. Beans, tuna, chicken, Chef Boyardi. Campbells’s Chunky soups are complete meals and you can stretch by putting over rice or noodles. Be sure to grab fruits or even applesauce cups. Basically, you don’t have to have just beans. BONUS RECIPE: can of black beans, can of corn, can of diced tomatoes. They make tomatoes with seasoning if you’re feeling fancy. Mix. The beans and corn complement to make complete protein.

2. Other shelf stable foods like Mac n cheese (with the premade sauce), those bags of rice or noodles that you add water to. Basically I’m not anticipating the grid going down and think we’ll still have water, so that should be cookable. Remember, if you have a grill, you can cook on that,

3. Frozen foods are also great, especially for veggies. The grid is probably not going down, so frozen foods in this case would be fine. Milk and yogurt freeze really well, FYI.

4. Hand soap. Don’t worry about fighting for sanitizer. Sanitizer is great if you’re out and about and touching, like, bus handles, but not worth getting into a riot over. Just wash your hands frequently.

5. Condoms and other forms of birth control. And if you have a kid older than say 12 you should have that talk and in detail. Lots of schools are closing. One of my mom’s job duties was to go to high schools when a school nurse thought they had a pregnant student and administer the pregnancy test. Without fail - WITHOUT FAIL - 6 weeks after a snow day she’d have a bump in testing.

6. A basic first aid kit. Especially good are antibiotics ointment for cuts, Tylenol or ibuprofen, a cough suppressant and anti-diarrheal like Pepto.

7. If you are a person that bleeds every month, be sure to have enough tampons and pads. Likewise if you have someone needing Depends type supplies.

8. Whatever it is babies need. Sorry, I was the youngest and I don’t have kids, so I have no idea.

9. Pet food, litter, etc.

10. All your meds, which I know is almost impossible with our current insurance set-up. Refill them as soon as possible.

BONUS IDEA: If you haven’t already, get a library card. You can do digital downloads of books, music, movies, etc. Especially of you have kids. Keep ‘em busy or your gonna have a grandbaby in 9 months.

People suggest having two weeks of food ready at all times. I know that’s not feasible for a lot of people due to finances and space. Do your best. If you can spare it, donate any of the above to a shelter or charity (but money is best.) And, if by some luck things don’t go bad, a lot of this stuff has a long shelf life. You can slowly use and rotate it out.

It could get bad and big cities could see some real ugliness if supply chains get broken down and we see some resource scarcity. You’re main goal for the next few weeks is to limit your exposure to other people, not just because of COVID-19, but people are scared and when people get scared, people get stupid.

THAT BEING SAID, check in on your neighbors, especially if they’re older. Like I said, no one is going to save you. This is going to be far too wide spread of a situation. We are going to save ourselves.