Meet me in Montana

In my last post, I left you hanging- wondering about our oldest daughters silly idea that if the world were ever going to meet it's demise we will have to run to Montana to live among the tree's. Well folks, slip into your jogging shoes, 'cause we're going on a journey.
According to Briti ( who's seen far more T.V. than is good for her) someday, when the earth's occupants become so evil that nobody will be safe even opening their front doors to fetch the morning paper, some relatively big city like New York is going to spontaneously combust and fall into the ocean, sending panic and confusion rippling across the surviving parts of the Nation. This will result in such chaos, local banks will be forced to close for fear of getting the "runs" and there will be rioting in every K-mart where they no longer offer any blue light specials. There will be a shortage of duct tape and you won't be able to find a single bottle of Midol anywhere. The only available Doctor will be Dr. pepper, who will be in such high demand that the lines at the gas station will stretch clear across main street and around the corner. There will be such a shortage of  food, the only things left on the grocery store shelves will be liquid drain-o and canned habanero chili peppers-of which there will be an abundance. Those people fortuitous enough to have become prepared for such a catastrophe well in advance will be nestled safely behind dead-bolted doors where there will be hot chocolate and dried fruit, cracked wheat cereal and reconstituted hot dogs roasted over the open flame of an emergency candle.
If you happen to still be here upon the earth when it comes to an end, I sincerely hope you do not find yourself standing in my kitchen, because you would be sorely disappointed at the sad lack of freeze dried and reconstituted foods you would find. It's true that we have invested in several large buckets of oats, rice and- of course- wheat, so if the idea of having plenty of food soothes one's anxiety about starving to death, I'd say your in good hands here. But the real panic is bound to set in when it is discovered that I have absolutely no idea how to use hard wheat in an emergency. I know I could boil you up some plain rice or some bland oatmeal over a few hot logs in the fireplace. I even think a bottle of soy sauce could be found in one of  the cupboards and maybe even some brown sugar or honey to make the oatmeal less boring. That would be quite easy. But, I say, it's the wheat that's got me stumped. In all my live long days-even despite the fact that I was raised by a mother who's homemade whole wheat bread and orange rolls have become a family legacy (that will die with my mother if I do not master the technique)- I have never actually made a loaf of bread from scratch all by myself. What, I beg of you, would ever possess me to want to do that? Some women consider the baking of bread fun and actually go to lengths to learn how to do it. Ugh. That to me, just sounds like the most frustrating thing I could ever attempt to do, like trying to learn Chinese when I'll probably never go to China. What's the point? I have imagined baking bread, but the way I have envisioned it is absolutely guaranteed not the way I know it would turn out in real life. In real life I would get out the recipe and put it on the counter in front of me and I would read the whole thing twice. Then I would stand there staring at the recipe and my mind would go completely blank and I would forget what to do first. The recipe would say "In a large mixing bowl..." and I would suddenly have no idea what a mixing bowl was. I would stand there puzzled until one of my girls would look at me and ask why I have that dumb blank stare on my face at which time I would mumble "mixing bowl?" and they would kindly but quietly come into the kitchen and retrieve for me a mixing bowl, put it in front of me on the counter and gently pat me on the hand on their way out. Then I would shift the weight of my mindless gaze to the empty bowl and think about all the other things I would much rather be doing, like using power tools. I don't have this kind of resistance to all forms of cooking-just the kind that requires skinning dead animals, plucking chickens or grinding wheat.
  Doug once risked his very life to give me an electric wheat grinder on mothers day (a very grave mistake if you are married to me) because he wanted so much to inspire me to become Betty Crocker. I must say that the closest I've come to ever using that wheat grinder was on that same mothers day when I  had the idea of putting Doug's brain in there. What good is an electric grinder anyway if there is no electricity? If we ever have such an emergency as the one I described earlier, I assume there would be no power, so how would you use that wheat? For me,  I imagine it going something like this: The world is coming to an end so the first thing that happens is the power goes out. In our family we always feel like the world really is coming to an end if we ever have to live through a power outage- because we get so bored we want to poke each others eye's out- so I can just imagine that the world coming to an actual end wouldn't seem too serious until the power is out. So, lets say there is this big sonic boom sound and then a loud splashing sound as New York falls into the ocean. Then the power turns off. Cell phones stop working so the teenagers are the first to catch on that life on this planet is over. There is wide spread panic in our house as the children become increasingly bored. And then there is a huge earthquake which turns out to just be Doug trying to entertain the kids with his version of flash dance. Then Doug is knocked unconscious when the wheat grinder falls off a shelf and hits him in the head. In an effort to revive him with a splash of cool water, I run to the sink but the water is off. In a panic I race to the pantry and see all the soda bottles we have filled with water over the years for just such an emergency. My hands are shaking and as I reach in to take one of the bottles from the shelf, the other bottles come loose and crash to the floor, soaking all the buckets of oats and rice that have broken open during the big "quake". Water ruins everything but one bucket of wheat tucked into a corner of the pantry. In desperation I reach into the bucket and clasp a handful of wheat. I raise it over my head and say " As God is my witness, I will never go hungry again!" ( meaning that if we plan to survive this, Doug better get up and learn how to make bread.) Then, with determined faith, I stand over Doug's lifeless form and with the last of my strength, I throw those little wheat pellets into Doug's face. Miraculously, he wakes up from his coma and we hold hands, grateful to be alive.
And then we live happily ever after- for about five minutes.
Then out of nowhere a bomb hits.And then we die.
The end.