|
"What the hell's lye?"
"Well....I'm not quite sure exactly, but it's an essential ingredient in soap. It says so on the website. Lye and coconut oil. It's quite clear about it. We won't just be able to run down to K-Mart, you know." I chuckled ironically. "There won't be a K-Mart. Not as we know it, anyway."
"Why not just stock up on soap?"
"What?"
"Surely it would be easier to stock up on soap than on coconut oil and that lye stuff."
I gave this a few seconds thought. "Hmm. Maybe you're right." I could see I had been right to put her in charge of soap. I seemed to be getting the hang of this leadership thing pretty quickly.
The weather had changed by the next morning, with a cool wind carrying a hint of an early fall. Ralph was wearing a tough combat jacket as he worked on his truck. He was changing a tire that the squirrel had been standing in front of the day before. The bullet had made a terrible mess of the tire and I shuddered to think of what would have been left of a less agile squirrel. He was not in a good mood. I handed him the jack.
"Damn squirrels!" he said, panting. Ralph is not in great shape. He bent over to attach the jack and as his pants slid down over his buttocks, I noticed that his underpants too were camouflage. I was reflecting that, if he intended to conduct military maneuvers in his underpants, he would have to paint his legs green and brown too, when I happened to glance into the back of his truck and noticed that it was full of toilet paper. There must have been about two hundred rolls of it. All different kinds. Most was the cheap store brand, but there was some Cottonelle and even some top of the range Kleenex.
"That's a lot of toilet paper there Ralph. Just how long do you think this apocalypse thing is going to last?"
"It may be toilet paper now, bud, but when Armageddon hits, it'll be gold dust."
I didn't understand. "I don't understand," I said.
"Well, dollars aren't going to be much use to anyone, are they."
"No, I guess not."
"So that's where things like toilet paper come in."
"Too small."
"What?"
"Dollar bills would be too small, wouldn't they. And hard too, I would think."
"No, you idiot, I'm talking about barter. It's on the website. It tells you to store stuff people are going to want to use for barter when the cash economy collapses."
"Oh." I decided to overlook his rudeness. He was clearly upset about the squirrel.
|
|
