It Could Happen Here - Bug Out Bags!
Episode Date: December 6, 2023James and Margaret talk about bug out bags, the things that might be useful in a crisis, and the things that probably won’t.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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Calls on media.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about the world falling apart
and people putting it back together. Today, I'm lucky to be joined by Margaret Kildreary.
She is the host of Live Like the World is Dying, a podcast for what feels like the end times.
And we are going to talk about bug out bags, aren't we, Margaret?
Woo, bug out bags or go bags.
Yes, or I bet they have other names.
Okay, wait, can I tell you my favorite?
Yeah, hit me.
Okay, the first preppers I ever met were these weird, cool anarchists 20 years ago.
They had an oh shit gear or OSG stashed in their basement.
I love that.
Yeah, that's great.
That's basically what you're talking about.
It's the thing that you go for when things are going love that. Yeah, that's great. That's basically what you're talking about. Like it's the thing
that you go for
when things are going to shit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think
the reason we're talking
about this, right,
is A, because it's entertaining
and it's always fun
to engage in hypotheticals.
B, because we've got
Margaret here
because she's very knowledgeable
on this stuff
and that's what she covers
on Live Like the World is Dying.
If you haven't listened
to that podcast, you should.
It's very good.
It's got lots of
sensible preparedness-focused content.
Is that a fair summary, Margaret?
I hope so.
Yeah, our whole thing is that we're basically trying to talk about community.
I'm not the only host.
I'm one of three hosts.
Yes.
We try to talk about community preparedness rather than individual preparedness,
or rather how the two are not at odds with each other,
like how what's best for the individual is to be part of a functioning community yeah and how like the bunker mentality will get you killed so one of my favorite things in the world is
talking shit on preparedness done wrong and since most of the preparedness space skews at best
center right but also far right.
There's lots of it done wrong that we can talk shit on.
Like, for example, this is me setting you up for.
Yeah, yeah, bugger bags.
There it is.
Yeah, that's like a layup and a dunk.
Yeah, basketball, I understand it.
We're really good at it.
Yeah, there's nothing that we like more than sports ball.
Okay, so the reason we're talking about this today
is because I have spent a lot of time recently
in refugee camps helping out,
helping people, feeding people, giving them blankets,
playing with their children, doing all the things.
And obviously everyone who enters these camps
comes with a bag, right?
They bring a bag with them.
They can generally have one sort of carry-on size bag
when they enter custody.
And that's generally all you can carry when you're moving across the desert mountain ranges of uh Baja California and Southern
California and I was spending a day there and it was cold and it was wet it was miserable and I was
trying to keep people warm and I was trying to build shelters all day and uh I was trying to
just do things along with my friends obviously this is by no means a effort. It's a great group of people who you've all heard about
if you listen to this podcast.
We've been out there all day.
And then I got back.
And just because I hadn't had a difficult enough day,
I logged on to Twitter.com, X.com.
Because you wanted your day to get worse.
Yeah, exactly.
I thought, what can I do?
Let's be pissed off at a fucking stranger on the internet
who you don't care about
and you've never met
but let them make you angry
anyway
that's what I did
I logged on
and
I logged on
promptly to be greeted
by some prick
with
I guess not your fault
I suppose it shouldn't be a prick
whatever
someone who hadn't quite
like
someone whose
idea of preparedness
was heavily influenced
by the film Red Dawn
and not by reality.
Which is like 90% of the people in that space.
But this person had this kit with a gas mask, with a folding AR-15,
with one of those law tactical folding things so you can break the buffer tube,
with seven or eight magazines of ammunition
like just like just the sort of stuff that yeah sure you would need to do like one sustained
firefight and then then what are you going to do but like it just really struck me that the
juxtaposition between these two things that i have seen people have to quote unquote bug out or oh
shit or whatever i myself have have had to leave a place where i was and go to a refugee camp for a
few days a few years ago and i've never seen a situation where a folding assault rifle would be
that useful to me and i have seen a lot of people who could really fucking use a sleeping bag or a
warm coat or a toy for their child because their child is crying and they didn't
bring any toys, you know, and lots of people don't have any preparedness stuff at all.
That's that's fine.
You know, we all start somewhere, but like, if you're going to do this, I want you to
do it in a way that might be useful to you.
And so that is why I have asked Margaret Kiljoy to come and help me explain. Right. And the problem, of course,
with this scenario that we discussed is that instead of having a folding AR,
they should have a folding AK-47 because then there's no need to break a buffer.
That's it. Yeah. And you can scavenge ammunition from the Cubans. Yeah. I see what you're doing.
Great. Yeah. Yeah. No, and although actually,
if I was going to fall deep into gun stuff
and talk about how people who are obsessed with AK-47s
while living in the United States
are also not doing preparedness right,
because anyway.
Yeah, yeah.
And actually, AKs break all the time.
I have personally seen that happen,
and you cannot, in fact, not maintain them at all.
Yeah, and there's more parts available for ARs.
But the point is that most of the time, you don't need firearms for most crises. Yeah. And there's more parts available for ARs. But the point is that most of the time
you don't need firearms for most crises. Many crises are made worse by having a firearm.
And okay. So like a lot of your background is with refugee stuff and you've had to,
you know, escape to a refugee center and work in refugee situations all the time.
One of my main backgrounds is that I lived out of a backpack for a long time when I was a cross
punk, right?
I was a homeless hitchhiker who, you know, hopped freight trains and slept under bridges and things like that. And I come from more of a position of privilege than a lot of people who do that.
I chose to do it as part of an activism lifestyle and stuff, you know.
And so I'm not trying to like get stolen valor here, but I spent a very long time living outside.
And the people who live outside all the time,
who have only a backpack,
know what goes in the backpack really well.
And you don't see homeless people with guns.
And it's not because they're not legally allowed to have them.
People, I mean, well, that's part of it in some situations, right?
It's, you know, when you don't have a safe place of storing something,
it becomes a lot more complicated.
But like, you're even talking about a group of people who often have to resort to violence to defend themselves and largely not using firearms to do it. Because in most situations, they're more trouble than they're worth because someone who's living outside is going to have to deal with cops all the time.
Someone, and this is what you were talking about when we were talking about getting ready for this episode.
It's like, well, let's say you have your AR and you approach the border.
Yeah, you're getting engaged really fast by like 75 Border Patrol guys
who have been training their whole life for this.
Not saying that they're particularly well-trained or efficient,
but they have been waiting for the one person with an assault rifle
who they can fire at for a very long time. Yeah. And the only purpose of having a firearm is if
it makes you and the people that you care about more likely to survive. Yes. Which doesn't happen
if the entire border patrol is shooting at you. Right. That's a bad vibe. That's a worse time.
at you. Right.
That's a bad vibe. That's a worst time. Yeah, no, it's like
I always carried a legal knife.
You know? Yeah.
Wherever I was, I didn't have a legal
length knife, and that was
fine. You know?
Yeah. It's efficient. Yeah. Look into knife
laws, though, before you...
Knife laws in America are almost as complicated as gun
laws, and... Well, you live in California,
you can't have a cane sword.
Yeah, that's right.
But I can open carry a large machete on my belt
as long as I don't attempt to conceal it.
Oh.
Or a sword, a regular sword.
I used to hitchhike with a machete.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There have been times that I've been doing stuff with a machete.
Yeah, exactly.
I needed it.
I was going to go camping.
I did actually once get a, I think it was a park ranger or someone.
I was coming in from freediving, and actually once get a, I think it was a park ranger or someone. Like I was coming in from free diving.
And when you free dive,
you always have a knife
because I've experienced this actually.
When you dive and you get tangled in fishing nets
and you're breath hold diving.
You need to get out so you don't die.
Yeah.
So you have a knife and you cut yourself out.
The guy was like,
oh, you're supposed to have that knife.
And I said, yes.
Yes, I'm supposed to have that knife.
So yeah, you can open carry a knife. It just depends on the county you're in in California, but in San Diego County.
Okay. So to talk about bug out bags though, what we do want them for is going to be different
person to person. And what I recommend that any preparedness minded person or any person,
I hope more people become preparedness minded, is to think about the crises that could happen
that are likely and think about what you would want and how you would deal with them.
And my argument upfront is that this can reduce anxiety if you do it right.
If you fixate on these things forever, like a lot of people don't engage with preparedness
because they don't want to be anxious about it.
They don't want to think about a forest fire, right?
But if you, I've said this before maybe
even on this show i'm not sure it was like when i lived in a cabin really in the woods like i
currently live in a house in the woods but there's like a little bit of buffer but i you know built a
12 by 12 cabin and like in the i cut down two small trees and built a cabin right and so i
worried about forest fire and so i i thought about what to do, which was, uh, make sure that I always had
like, you know, some sort of radio and, and, or cell communication available to me, uh, keep a
bag ready with all the stuff I need. Keep, make sure that my car is half a tank of gas and that's
it. That's all I was going to do to prepare. There's more you can do, but that's all I was going to do. So I stopped worrying about forest fire.
And so I think done right, a go bag or a bug out bag or preparedness in general can reduce our anxiety.
And the thing that I think people get wrong is that for most people, moving over land by yourself and surviving in nature is not a likely response to crisis.
Yes.
There are some times where that will be true.
And even like you're talking about like working at, you know,
the border where people are having to like build shelters and things like that.
But for most people, I don't even say put a sleeping bag in your go bag
because size might be more important than that.
Having other warm stuff and emergency
blankets and things like that i do absolutely advocate you know but then again i often make
sure that i have a sleeping bag around because i do live in the middle of the woods and if my
cars were broken and there was a bad thing i would have to go overland 10 miles to get anywhere you
know yeah because your situation is not the same as everyone's. And I think that's a really good point.
For most people, I advocate that you think about your bug out bag
as your get out of town for a weekend bag.
It is the, you live in a hurricane area.
It is a blizzard's coming.
It is your stalker ex is in town and you don't want to be around.
It is a, I decided all of a sudden I'm going to go visit my family and I don't want to be around. It is a, I decided all of a sudden I'm going to go visit my family
and I don't want to pack.
You know, it is just a,
it's, you're more likely to spend a night
in your car on the road somewhere,
like in a blizzard, let's say, you know?
Yep.
So what do you need to spend the night
in your car in the snow?
And the answer is not that much. You need water and you need to spend the night in your car in the snow? And the answer is not that much.
You need water and you need warmth.
Food is like great, right?
Yeah.
We can kind of, I mean, you should have a little bit of snacks
just so you might not have snacks around.
Yeah, and it's in a stressful situation,
having something to eat, it helps, it calms you down,
it helps you deal with that stress.
Yeah.
And one of the other things that we were talking about
is we were talking about how you know okay so like the basic level that i advocate um i advocate
actually even more than having like your your bug out bag is having a smaller pouch that is your
emergency bag and that goes into whatever other backpack or purse or anything else you're carrying
around and i actually like make these and distribute them to my friends and stuff.
Oh, here's a fun tip.
If you're the prepper in your family or friend group, when it comes time to holiday presents, if you give them preparedness stuff, that has to be on top of whatever else you give them.
Because you can't just give them your weird niche stuff.
Yeah.
Like you have to give them what they want
as well as the wind-up radio, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair if sad.
You can't just recycle gear that you wanted to try
and didn't like and just give it to your aunt or something.
I mean, you can.
You just also have to do other stuff too.
Yeah, you can.
You're just a bad niece or nephew or whatever.
Non-binary child of sibling so i say that these emergency kits are three different things they are a hygiene
kit because like the thing that i need the most often when i'm suddenly didn't prepare and i'm
suddenly somewhere and i'm staying out late is like a folding toothbrush, right? Yeah. Or like some wet wipes in a packet or, you know,
I don't know, like nail clippers or something.
Yeah, like I'm a person who uses insulin, right?
So like I have a lot of bags with insulin in.
It's in most of my bags because I'm up shit creek without it.
Yeah, it's better to have it, you know?
Yeah.
I'm very lucky to have access to insulin and even have some spare.
Not everyone does.
Yeah.
Because pharmaceutical industry is terrible.
It is.
Yeah.
That's actually one of the hardest things when talking to people about preparedness
is like getting more of your medication is very complicated.
And a lot of the methods that people should consider are not legal and I'm not going to
advocate them.
It is legal to buy medicine, I think, for your own personal usage in countries that are not the United States when you're traveling there anyway.
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So you want hygiene, you want a basic first aid kit,
like kind of on the like boo-boo kit level, right? Which is as if it's like not important,
but actually like you just don't want, infections can get real bad. So you just want to make sure
that you have the ability to clean a small wound and treat it. Right. And, uh, what is it? It's hygiene, it's medical, and then it's survival
stuff. And for me, this is just like tiniest amounts of, one of the cool things about preparedness
is that the little first things you do are so much more likely to be useful than the complicated things later. Having a Bic lighter is so much more likely to
be useful than flint and steel and fire starter and all of the bells and whistles.
Yeah. I do love my flint and steel, but you're right. It is exponentially more useful.
I've been at the border all week. People are cold. It's very windy. I have a flint and steel in my truck.
I've used that zero times.
I have gone through an entire eight pack of big lighters.
I've refilled my Zippo twice.
I've given away all my lighters.
Yeah.
Because yeah, when you're cold,
in fact, you are not inclined to start shaving little pieces off a large metal rod.
Yeah, exactly.
And like, I keep little bits of fire starter
and things like that in these emergency kits.
Basically, anything that is like light and cheap and useful
goes into these kits for me, you know?
But the stuff that I prioritize is stuff like
the first lighter is more useful than the second one, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Margaret, do you know what's probably not light,
certainly not cheap and rarely useful?
Gold. That's right. Yep, certainly not cheap and rarely useful? Gold.
That's right. Yep. Gold. You've nailed it. Let's hear about gold.
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We're back.
That was an episode of Something You Don't Need but Margaret was about to pivot I think
to telling you some more things that you do need
Right
So go ahead Margaret
Okay, so tiny little emergency kit
you just put it in everything
and it's just like
it's always useful
and it's like everyone I give these to
is always a little bit like
oh thanks
and then about a year later
they're like
oh I was at this protest and someone cut
themselves or just some really minor, strange, random thing.
They're like, it always comes up that it's really useful that I have this tiny little
flashlight in a bag always.
Oh, yeah.
Love a tiny torch.
And okay, so there's that.
And then if you want, you could have a designated bug out bag and you keep it in the front closet or you keep it under your bed or you keep it wherever is like kind of useful to you.
Some people might keep them in their vehicles. That really depends on where you live. I wouldn't necessarily advocate it in a lot of places because vehicles are more broken into and also have more temperature fluctuations and things like Advil and like over-the-counter medications don't do so great with wild temperature fluctuations.
Okay, so
you get yourself a bag.
What kind of bag really depends
on what you're talking about? We were
showing each other our bags beforehand.
Yeah, this little
insight into our interactions
off-mic there.
I'll describe mine and you describe
yours. I'll describe mine, you describe yours okay and i'll describe
mine you describe yours and then say why you have it and then i'll say why i have mine okay
i basically have like a regular daypack computer bag it just uh there's no waist belt it just it's
designed to hold a laptop that's my bug out bag what i have have is a Mystery Ranch day pack. It's a 32 liter bag.
It's called a Scree 32 for those of you who want to be just like me.
And I have it because I really like the carriage system Mystery Ranch uses.
It's just like a yoke.
So it carries like a frame backpack, but isn't big and bulky.
Yeah, that's cool.
I've used it.
I think I've used this bag on every continent in the world apart from the antarctic like it's just a bag that i can put stuff in that is a size that
is not obnoxious and it works for me for almost everything i day hike with it i i go on overnights
with it i use it as my carry-on on the plane uh yeah it's just a useful bag that is not covered
in molly and multicam and such things yeah and i know it works
for me like i i've used it for a long time and i know that it's suitable for my body with heavy
weights yeah no and like i love i love bags and i i will happily geek out about bags and like that
bag is me too it's pretty nice and this is like my least favorite backpack, right? I have like other backpacks. Like my day hiking bag is like a 25 liter, you know, actually has a waist strap and I
like really like it, but I keep it packed with my day hiking stuff, you know?
And so you do a lot of outdoor sports.
Yes.
Yeah.
And so it really easily doubles as all of that, right?
Yeah, exactly. yes yeah yeah and so it really easily doubles as all of that right yeah exactly like i'm you know most weekends you know i try and sleep outside at least once a month
so yeah you know i just sort of have that stuff anyway because it's part of my day-to-day life
and mine is designed from the period of my life where i basically would go to whatever
anarchist coffee shop was in whatever
town and just hang out there and work all day. Right. And so like, and I was like, and I used
to have a bug out bag that was like a little bit bigger. It was like a tactical bag. It was a three
day assault pack, you know? And to be fair, I lived in a cabin in the woods and it was 2020
and the odds of major military crisis were much higher.
And, you know, but like, but right now I'm just like,
this is my bag that comes with me when I go to my friend's house
or when I go see my family.
And because it's the important thing is that you have the bag that is available.
Like the piece of gear that you have is always better
than the piece of gear you don't have.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You don't have to save up 200 bucks
for, you know, a mystery range or an Osprey bag.
Right.
But if your thing is being outside all the time,
like, you know, you should have those things, right?
Yeah.
And, okay, so what I put in my,
everyone's going to have really different stuff in their bug out bag, but some of the, a list that I have as my, okay, so what I put in my, everyone's going to have really different stuff in their bug out bag, but some of the list that I have as my like, kind of like core of it that I would recommend that most people would want to have some version of.
And you should add things and we can talk about these things.
Yeah.
Your passport and print copies of any essential records such as your animal's rabies vaccine card and medication and things like that. This is the stuff to help you ease bureaucracy as you move
through the world. This is actually a thing you need to be careful with because then sometimes
you don't want to bring your passport everywhere you go, right? You don't want to lose it,
you know. But if it's your bug out bag that's waiting for you in case of an emergency,
I think that's a decent place to keep it.
Yes, I agree.
You want an encrypted USB stick with copies of all these important documents, such as your driver's license, your passport, house and vehicle titles or rental agreements, insurance information, contact information for family and friends, vaccination records for your animals, and the like.
It clearly shows that I have an animal and not kids.
I'm sure there's other
stuff that you would yeah i mean i literally this is just making me think of i ran into a guy the
other day who had come to the u.s with his dog border patrol wouldn't process him alongside his
dog so volunteers kind of looked after his dog while he was processed and then returned his dog
to him yeah but now he's going to have to go through the process
of certifying the dog's vaccinations.
Maybe the dog will have to get them again.
Luckily, he and the dog are on a road trip to their final home,
the place where they want to live, where they're meeting up
with friends and family so that they're having a great trip
across the country right now.
Good, yeah.
Yeah, just easing that transition through bureaucracy
by having those
documents to hand i'm sure would have been great yeah and like honestly the more i read about uh
people dealing with um refugee crisis and like oh i don't know the right to return various places
the more you can prove like the ownership of the stuff you own and things like that. Yes, yeah. It can be very easy to become,
like, I understand that lots of this bureaucracy exists
to make people legible and therefore taxable by the state, right?
If we're talking from an anarchist perspective,
I understand why it exists.
I've been reading James Scott a lot recently,
if that hasn't shown off there.
But in a scenario where the state exists exists which is the one we are in
then there are advantages to being legible and understandable by the state and uh certain
disadvantages to being illegible to the state when you're trying to get your house back
and even like again my my time as a as a crusty traveler my my 20s and into my 30s, the single most useful thing that I carried was my driver's license
without warrants. Because I used to have my ID run every single day. Because actually,
it's actually part of the reason I have a strange aversion to carrying a hiking style backpack
around often is because I learned when you look like a punk and you have a travel,
like a hiking backpack, you are now the cop's main target.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so like, whereas when I have like a computer bag,
I'm not the cop's main target and that makes my life easier, you know?
Okay.
Small amounts of emergency food,
such as protein bars that you want to like swap out every couple of months i recommend putting in the ones that you don't like um because otherwise you'll eat them
because otherwise you'll be like oh i could go i know where i have a tasty snack yeah yeah this is
sorry just before we recorded i ate a bar from this bag that i've been showing you
yeah yeah um there's a product called a humanitarian daily ration, which is a vegan MRA that they give to refugees.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, those are great.
Everyone can eat them.
Yeah.
They're very good to have.
And I have those for emergency food because everyone can eat them.
Rarely do I feel like I want to eat them.
So, yeah.
I've been recently keeping, I haven't eaten one yet.
I've been keeping these flavorless emergency ration bars.
Oh, like the lifeboat rations? Yeah, they're're just like i think like oil and sugar and flour or something sounds delicious
yeah and it's like you know what it's three days worth of food at 1200 calories a day
it's barely three days whatever yeah okay so i recommend having that and you know making sure to swap that out uh overall i advocate not putting in things
that will go bad because you are going to forget about this until it becomes a habit for you to
check it every month or so yeah okay um a travel hygiene kit with toothbrush floss toothpaste moist
towelettes foam earplugs for sleeping in noisy environments that one is like way more. Yeah. Yes, yes, yeah.
A time in my life when I was mostly living in my car,
traveling around France, racing bicycles,
I got caught in a snowstorm along with a number of other people
who were traveling in various vehicles.
And some of them were traveling in order to make an asylum claim.
And we all got sent to this refugee camp
where basically we're sleeping on the floor
of a large building.
And I did not sleep for days
because people had children and it was loud.
And those earplugs would have been
the most important thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it was like,
I actually started carrying them
just because of going to shows
when I used to do that more.
And then I was like,
oh, these are really useful
in all kinds of situations.
They cost like nothing.
And they save your hearing.
The bang for your buck, the non-bang for your buck is very good.
Yeah, the poof for your buck is great.
Nail clippers, your daily wear makeup, and anything else you might need goes in your hygiene kit.
Any prescription or over-the-counter medications that you rely on.
And one thing that
came up from a doctor friend of mine recommended when i was first started making these kits for my
friends i was like buying bulk aspirin and putting it into little drug baggies you know yeah smart
and my friend was like you need to put blister packs in instead blister packs being the like
little yeah individually when you individually labeled
ones yeah both margaret and i using hand yes yeah to explain this thing yeah yeah we're professionals
yeah because the police have less cause for suspicion if you are searched and this is
clearly advil it says so it is packaged um in a way that is not convenient for people to make their own packages
and so and actually what's funny is that of all the ones that i put into people's things the only
thing i haven't been able to get blister packed is caffeine um because i put caffeine into these
things because a lot of people are addicted to it and also because it's useful to be able to stay
awake in certain environments and so i actually put in like different like caffeine
powder drinks or uh caffeine gum or other things yes yeah it's gonna say get mre caffeine gum
yeah and then also um and i give them to like my friends who are about to drive sleepy
is like yes and that's the main use that i have had it's amazing i don't drink caffeine it's
amazing how much caffeine i have on me at any given time.
Lethal nose.
Yeah.
A change of socks and underwear.
And these should be like climate appropriate, especially like wool socks are like the most useful thing in the world, just as a general rule.
I think that a packable rain jacket and or poncho is incredibly useful here.
A lot of people like the ponchos that are sort of a slightly more military style because
you can use them as a tarp and make a shelter if you need that might be overkill for
your particular environment. You might also just have like your hiking rain jacket that goes in
there. A puffy packable warm top is a little bit of a like bonus item. I think having a warm upper
layer is really important for a lot of it's
until you've slept outside without a sleeping bag you have no idea how cold it is in the summer to
sleep outside yeah on the ground especially whenever i'm watching movies or reading books
and like the kid runs away from home or they're like on that and they go and they sleep in the
woods i'm like the fuck they did they did not sleep that night yeah yeah you lie on your side
holding yourself wondering why you made these choices in life yeah yeah i might add that if
you're going to have a specific like a puffy jacket for this and you don't own a puffy jacket
yet a couple of things to consider are that um generally compressing down will help make it lose
some of its loft so it'll be less loftyy. So you don't want to keep that stuff compressed for a very long time or super compressed, right? Don't cram
it into the smallest ball. Remember that when you buy down jackets, all the baffles, which
are the sewing lines across it, those are areas that are not insulated, right? So you
don't actually want the ones with the hundred little baffles going down them.
Oh, interesting. That makes sense. Yeah. And then synthetic insulation does a lot better with wetness.
It retains some of its insulating properties.
And my final thing with down jackets,
I think a lot about down jackets, I'm sorry,
is get one that is a size bigger than you would normally get
for like your Oh yeah.
Because you don't really want to be taking stuff off when you're cold.
You want a jacket that you can just put on over all your stuff.
We call it a belay parka in the sort of mountaineering community,
but it's like a static thing, right?
So you're hiking, you're mountain climbing, you stop,
you immediately check that thing on over everything.
That keeps you warm until you start moving again. makes sense to me i advocate personally i advocate for synthetic
i advocate because it's cheaper you can leave it compressed and because it insulates better in the
wet and it is much heavier for its and larger for its insulating value. But for me, having spent a lot of my life
sleeping in sleeping bags with no tarp or whatever
and just being like, I'll just fucking deal with it.
It's not raining that hard.
Yeah, totally.
I have fucked some really expensive down sleeping bags.
Even the oil on your skin will actually eventually cause that down.
Yeah, you really have to baby some ultra light down stuff, which is fine. If I'm mountaineering and I'm eventually cause that down to the club. Yeah, like that you really have to baby
some ultra light down stuff, which is fine.
Like if I'm mountaineering and I'm doing something like that,
I will baby my bag
because I don't want to carry extra shit.
But this is not that.
Exactly.
Like if you are trying to do a through hike,
you might look at this very differently.
And there's a version of the world
where your crisis might involve
moving over the mountains in winter
to get out of a country that has just elected a fascist who says that he wants to kill all the communists or whatever.
Yeah, I've spoken to those people.
Yeah.
And so in that situation, get the mountaineering shit, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, other stuff to have in this bag.
A heavy-duty trash bag.
You can put all your stuff in it to keep it dry.
Yeah, yeah.
There's all these arguments about how to keep your bag dry.
And overall, and I'm curious if this has been your experience,
people have been moving away from pack covers where you cover the pack
and instead just put everything inside the pack into something that's waterproof.
Yeah, that's what I've done for a very long time.
You can spend a lot of money on stuff sacks.
Like the event ones at Sea to Summit make it cool
because they have a one-way breathable fabric.
So you squeeze them and the air goes out.
Oh, that rules.
It doesn't go back in.
It's pretty cool.
But then you end up with these really hard bricks
of clothing or whatever that like,
you can't kind of make them fill the space, right?
They just end up being like solid.
So sometimes they don't pack as well. i have used three millimeter uh contract grade bin bags
for years yeah the mountains and the deserts you can sleep in them you can make them into a poncho
you can fill them with brush and make them into a sleeping pad uh yeah great items and it's sketchy
but a lot of people um who are stuck living outside in very cold
environments will wear them close to their skin for like a really intensely heating insulating
layer but it's sketchy because then you sweat like hell and you can freeze to death you have
to be really careful yes that's some like that's some life or death shit yeah exactly i'm not
telling you how to do that on air here you know yeah good
call but yeah they have a lot of uses you give them to to gather water too i've done that before
oh that makes sense cash cash is really useful the amount of cash you want to carry has to do
with the amount of cash that you're willing to put into a bag but just sits there for it does nothing
you know yeah gold of course yeah totally uh i have so many thoughts about
gold and yeah i know yeah yeah anyway uh that's beside the point that's for home prepping
okay you want to spare usb battery and charging cables i i would advocate an octopus cable that
has like mini usb-c and lightning charger all on one cable so you don't have to keep track of
multiple cables for multiple devices.
Yeah.
That guy right here.
I'm trying to look what the brand is of mine because I got one recently.
When I'm working in places that are conflict zones, especially places where I think I might
have to go peace out to a bomb shelter for a few hours, days, whatever, I like to have
a little pouch with all my charging
and medical and essential stuff.
This is called a lever cable, and I found it to be very handy
because it's stiff and it doesn't...
Cables get twisted and frayed a lot.
I like this guy because he doesn't do that.
A little buzz marketing for you there.
No, I'm going to look into those later.
As much as I'm like'm like oh fuck all the
gadgets no what i'm trying to say is you don't need all the gadgets but they're kind of cool
and like and the size of extra battery you have is depending on what you're doing you know like
if you're reasonably sure you're gonna be around power just have a little one and because like
you know what you're gonna be the one who saves the night when everyone's drunk at the bar
and someone's phone is dead and they're the only person who has uber set up right and you know um yeah like i've been trying to advocate that
purse snacks are the best example of prepping and that everything that like men are trying to do is
like catching up with the fact that like women are actually culturally in in our society like
better at prepping um yeah but okay um i put a mylar emergency blanket in these are
these like you know they seem almost gimmicky they're these incredibly light little plastic
tarps right uh one probably saved my life when i was like on my like 12th or 13th birthday when i
like woke up getting hypothermia five miles from the road in a wet
tent so i'm just like yeah no eyes are great like yeah they're great they uh they can do a
hypothermia wrap with them they use them for signaling if you're in a different kind of
situation uh we can't use them in the refugee camps where i'm working because one of them
floated into a transformer uh and that oh wow that yeah so yeah that's your uh that's your caveat there don't use them around high voltage power but
yeah those things you're not going to get anything warmer for that size it's the size of a couple of
credit cards stacked on top of each other yeah totally and like in mine i have like a slightly
nicer one because i don't have a sleeping bag in mine i have like a emergency bag sleeping bag i've
never used it i don't oh yeah there's a company
called Survive Outdoors
fuck I'm saying
a lot of companies today
buy whichever shit you want
I don't care
there's a company
called Survive Outdoors
longer that makes one
that's like about the size
of a beer can
yeah
that's what I have
I think
those are great
I've fucked up
one of those
when I was doing
like the
look how ultra light
I can be stuff
it's not great but like but here you are recording yeah here i am not complete with my full set of
digits so like i can't really complain you know yeah exactly and those things won't float off
into a power transformer they're a bit heavier yeah yeah yeah no that would be yeah it would
be an advantage of it uh yeah and it's the other side, so again, people will see you, right?
Which, contrary to what you might have seen on YouTube,
you want people to see you most of the time.
Most crises you're going to encounter, you're not going to be hiding.
Right.
Sometimes when you're hitchhiking and shit, you do have to not be seen,
and then I get really annoyed at how bright all the tents are.
And so I kind of want one of the new new bullshit camo ultralight tents but yeah
that's i don't hitchhike i have a fucking truck it's bullshit i'm fine a full water bottle i think
it's always worth having a full water bottle in your in your bag this is the heaviest thing in
your bag um water is just fucking wonderful and you need way more of it than you think you do
when you're exerting yourself i have been historically advocating a single wall steel canteen so that the water can
be boiled in an emergency directly in it but a lot of people have a preference for lighter weight and
that makes a lot of sense and also even having something that just looks a little bit more
civilian also makes a lot of sense the ultra light i actually think the ultra lighters might
be right on this one and they use the,
to use a brand name,
they all get those smart waters
but then they don't keep drinking smart water.
They drink one
and then they clean it
and refill the bottle with tap water.
Yeah, or with the sort of filter
fits on top of them,
which is very handy.
Right.
Yeah, the thing I do like
about a single wall stainless bottle,
A, the smart water bottles
where you fill them up and then they freeze, they can break.
Right.
And B, I like to do the Nalgene baby,
where you boil some water, put it in that thing,
and then if you are cold, that comes into bed with you.
Yeah.
Very pleasant experience.
Yeah, no, that makes sense to me.
I don't know.
It's a weapon, too.
Full steel water bottle.
That's true.
Just push someone on the head with it.
Yeah.
They don't cut me back from that.
Even the guy with the folding AR, he's not getting up.
You give him a couple with the water bottle.
Well, and if we're going full crust punk,
I also recommend a lock attached to a chain.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, if you have a bicycle, it's very handy.
That's true.
That's true. Yeah, yeah. yeah areas of our interest yeah uh okay uh a butane lighter a bick lighter uh an emergency whistle this is the most
like i was at a firearms training and we were talking about a bunch of stuff and people were
like all right and this is how you like signal the following you know like like range clear kind of
stuff like use a whistle blah blah blah blah, blah. And everyone's like,
I didn't bring a whistle. I'm like,
I got three in my bag. Like, what are you
doing? Amateurs.
They're light and
cheap and useful. Like, the number
of people who wouldn't have died in the woods
if they had a whistle.
Like, more than anything else.
Because people think that the solution
to our problems is fix it yourself think that the solution to our problems
is fix it yourself usually the solution to problems is get help yes yeah yeah and that's
a great like you're going to use a lot less energy whistling than shouting yeah and most
if hiking backpacks will have a chest buckle that is also a whistle and if they don't you
can probably change it yeah and that rules that's the kind of shit i like to see yeah it's well thought out it's clever yeah we love it and
when i when i lived on a land project i made everyone put the hurricane whistles by their door
so that like we didn't always have uh good cell reception or whatever and so that there's an
emergency we can everyone has a whistle loud enough to be heard by everyone else on the
the large property oh yeah you know smart yeah it costs a lot less money than a ham radio,
which is something I've been.
Right.
And like, I'm not anti having like, you know,
good walkie talkies and stuff, but yeah.
Yeah.
Sometimes you're just like, no, I have a hurricane whistle
or even I just have a regular whistle.
Okay.
A folding knife.
3D print them.
What's that?
You could 3D print them.
Really good ones.
Oh, that's cool.
Like 3D print them and give them out now.
That's cool.
That's awesome. I keep 3D print them and give them out now. That's cool. That's awesome.
I keep a folding knife
in these bags.
I also usually
just have one on me.
But, you know,
the least weapon-looking knife
you can get
is going to be a bang for your buck
in terms of, like,
being able to go with you
lots of places.
Obviously, this isn't going
to your carry-on luggage.
Yeah.
A rechargeable headlamp or
flashlight and then a basic first aid kit. That's my, you know, there's all kinds of other stuff.
If you're going to be hiking, if you're, and if I know I'm going to be like in a lot of situations,
one of the first things I would add is a tarp and a sleeping bag. That would be like the next things to go in.
Sleeping bags are pretty big.
Yeah.
I generally have that stuff.
In a general sense, both for doing this and for generally enjoying outdoor stuff,
it really helps if you can have your shit organized in stuff sacks and labeled.
So that, you know, if you should, you
need to leave your house in an emergency, right, it's going to be more comfortable.
If you have a sleeping bag and inflatable pillow and a top, you can grab them in 10
seconds if you've got them labeled.
Right.
And it's, this will also help you.
Like I like to camp.
The worst part about camping is packing.
So if I have all my stuff, I can just be like, okay, I got a sleep
system, I got a cooking system.
Got some 24 hours of food. I'm ready to rumble.
Yeah.
No, it makes sense.
But you know what?
Who else is ready to rumble?
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Yeah, for the Muay Thai BJJ.
Actually, that shit's fun.
Yeah, that shit's cool.
Krav Maga.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
The Reagan gold of martial arts.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so what do you...
Okay, so I have other stuff that I keep in my bag
that is more fun or I think incredibly useful
but not in the dead basics that I keep.
But what else do you keep?
Do you have any like fun stuff or other stuff that I didn't mention?
Yeah, a couple of other things, I think.
One of the things I use the most, this is my little bag that I have
if I have to go to an area shelter or something.
It's very, very small.
It's like, I don't know, it's the size of a small paperback book
would go into a bigger bag.
But one of the things that I use, I take on trips with me and I use it everywhere I go.
And this is like a quarter inch bit driver.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
And it spins.
It spins on its...
Just a tiny screwdriver where you can change the bits.
Yeah.
And then I have a set of bits.
Yeah.
So like I use this bad boy all the time, right?
I use it when I get water in my podcast
equipment which is a thing that i am want to do uh okay you have to uh this is my this is my uh
this is my laddism right i'm breaking the frame of big podcast um you keep a sledgehammer
specifically for breaking frames yeah weaving I do. Weaving machine frames.
If you run it.
Yes, yeah.
If there's one thing I fucking hate, it's a weaving machine.
And I take them down whenever I can.
But this guy is really useful, right?
Like, you know, you could be staying with, you could be,
there are a million things, right?
Your bed in your hotel is loose and you need to tighten it.
You need to take apart your podcasting machine.
There is, you know, there's something wrong with your phone whatever it is like a screwdriver and a few little
bits super handy yeah you want to help your friend put together some ikea furniture not a problem uh
so it's very very small it's you know the size of uh it's probably the size of a cigarette and
then the set of bits is the size of another cigarette. Very easy to carry around with you everywhere.
I am an appreciator of sporks.
Oh, that was on my follow-up list too.
Oh, excellent, good.
Yeah, I'm a person who thinks about sporks a lot.
You guys can read my spork reviews at backpacker.com if you want to.
That's awesome.
Yeah, that's not a joke.
It's just a reflection on the sad person i am um so yeah a
okay are you a long-handled spork or a regular spork see the long-handled spork is nice for when
you're going into an mre type meal yeah how often you're going into an mre type meal compared to
like the pocketability of a normal spork right no that makes sense to me. Yeah. The MRE spoon is the best bargain eating device. It weighs six grams,
which is less than a titanium spork. You can dip it into hot water. It doesn't melt.
It doesn't break like a traditional plastic. It's not like a fast food plastic spoon.
It's best bang for your buck when it comes to spoons.
Okay. When I was more of a cross punk always on my waist belt
was a titanium spork
with a P38 can opener
keychain to it
because no matter what I could get into a
can of Amy's chili
the amount of people I've seen
and I took camping a lot
sometimes I'll go with my truck, sometimes I'll go by myself on my feet the amount of humans I've seen, and I took camping a lot, sometimes I'll go with my truck, sometimes I'll go by myself,
you know, on my feet.
The amount of humans I've seen with very expensive overlanding setups,
trying to open a can of food on a rock, it's a lot of humans.
Like, a can opener is a very handy thing.
No, and the P-38 or P-51s, these are the tiny military ones,
they weigh nothing.
They're like, 10 of them would fit on a credit card.
You know?
Yeah, I have one in my truck.
But yeah.
They're very small.
In terms of other things, I do like zip ties.
Zip ties, very small, very handy.
Yeah.
You can always fix your zip ties.
I'm just looking at this bag in front of me and thinking,
what else I have that's uh remarkable i saved the day with zip ties when when i was driving in the woods
with my friend when um some part of her exhaust system fell off of her van and i was like dragging
on the ground and i didn't normally carry zip ties but my dad had always been like zip ties
they're amazing and i was like sure dad whatever so i i had some in my
truck yeah very hand zip ties and duct tape certainly in your vehicle you can fix most stuff
that wants fixing uh with with zip ties and duct tape i just like to wrap the handles of my stuff
like i have a little bit lighter here um and i just wrap that in duct tape and then i have the
duct tape yeah and i have the big lighter duct tape also is great tinder you can start a fire with it so okay uh really has many many uses you can use one
lighter to light the other lighter on fire yeah yeah you could also take the tape off your lighter
if you wanted to avoid lighting your lighter all right if you did light your lighter you'll get a
moment of excitement when it goes poof yeah unless're holding it, which gives you a moment of pain.
Which can be exciting.
Yeah, it can be exciting.
Hopefully you're close to a hospital.
Yeah.
And yeah, I like to carry it like a little pre-made.
I do like to vacuum seal stuff.
It's a thing that I enjoy.
I recently got a vacuum sealer.
I've been getting really into it.
So I'll vacuum seal little packets of pills, little plasters uh band-aids for american listeners yeah into little packs and
give them to people or keep them places it maybe helps them with aging a little bit but having a
having a bag like that you could just open in an emergency it's super handy um the other thing that
i like and largely this is is just because I go to places
and I have these tiny little fishing chem lights. They're designed for certain fishing
floats. They're very good if you need to see something-
And so that's glow sticks for the non-tactical crowd.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or for the British tactical crowd. They're very handy.
You need to mark something at night, right?
Like they're not going to be great for like,
I have flares in my car.
If my car breaks down on a dark road,
I don't want people to pile into the back of it.
But for smaller things,
you're going around a campsite
and you want to be like,
oh, like, you know,
there's a piece of rebar
sticking out the ground here, right?
You can crack one of those bad boys and it'll light it up.
No, that makes sense.
They're also just a way to bamboozle young children.
If you're around kids at night and you can suddenly make light appear,
just make sure they don't eat them.
Okay, but see, this actually gets to something that you brought up earlier.
A lot of crisis situations, an awful lot of them, you're not alone.
And in an awful lot of them, things like being able to entertain kids and things like that
is like, yeah, a genuine need, like a very useful thing.
And so like, I know people who keep, you know, like, I mean, usually people who have kids,
but they keep a stuffed animal or something like that in their bag.
Yeah. Like I was, so there were a lot of children in these camps down the border and that's very fucked up uh but like i realized i didn't have any toys so i got loads
of these tiny little stuffed animals someone had donated like they're about the size of a golf ball
and it gave each child an animal right so they could play with little animals and the animals
could be in community with each other oh that's amazing yeah yeah they were so pumped and it wasn't just that
the kids were like yeah i got a toy the parents were like thank fuck like yeah they are so bored
right or like i have a small finger puppet that i was using the other day to entertain them
uh i don't know where i found it i found it in one of the vans we were using yeah it's like a seal
uh and like something like that makes it all the
difference when you have nothing to do with your kids um and i guess like along those lines when i
am bored i have the kindle app on my phone i think it works with all the phones yeah obviously jeff
bezos is a bellend but like that's a it's not a slash it's a british word yeah yes it's a british
word we don't like yeah it's always the end of a dick the tumescent part
yeah
yeah okay
yeah
for those who weren't
clear in the audience
yeah
but yeah
Jeff Bezos is a dick
but the Kindle app is nice
you can also have
PDFs of books
on your phone
but like
it's
again like
I'm telling you
from personal experience
when you're sitting
in a giant warehouse
with nothing to do
for a few days,
somewhere I have a picture of building a fort
with this little, you know,
she's like three or four, you know,
and her folks had come.
Her folks were refugees and we were just bored.
So we built a fort out of Mylar blankets.
But someone had an inflatable ball,
which we just played with for hours
because you're so bored.
So yeah, just having having an app on your phone
where you can read books
is probably going to be more useful to you
than that short-barreled rifle
that you have to pay a $200 tax stamp
and let the feds come into your house for.
Yeah.
Every Crestpunk I knew,
you always carry what you need
and then you carry something.
And you almost set your personality around this.
Like I knew a guy who was not an ultralighter,
and his name was Pogo Dave.
A fucking pogo stick?
Yeah, an old metal, rusted pogo stick.
And I almost broke my knee with that thing.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah.
I don't know if younger listeners will be familiar with the pogo stick.
Do you think that's like, do you think the Zoomers in the audience will be pogo?
I have no idea.
They're probably on the-
Look it up, kids.
Yeah.
And so having something, and it's funny too, because every like prepper manual is like,
and a deck of cards.
And this is like technically true, but I'll tell you what people actually play is hot
dice.
Having some like six-sided dice to play this really actually play is hot dice having some like six sided dice to play this really
annoying game called hot dice
or like
bring some D&D dice and just
start playing like role playing games with people
you know like there's like
having the entertainment things
and then the other thing I think it's
really worth considering having a small
musical instrument I
find that like there's a reason
that cross punks play music everywhere they go. Yeah. Are you about to pull out a harmonica?
I have a harmonica in a pistol magazine pouch that I take on the side of my bag when I go to places.
Hell yeah. Yeah we took me so when Robert and I did our Myanmar trip I left my harmonica with the
the people who you're gonna hear singing at the start of our show.
They played their guitars and sung for us.
Cool.
I left them the harmonica
and they play it now.
Yes, a harmonica.
Practical harmonica.
The one thing that I have in my bugger-up bag
that's a little bit extra,
but I swear by,
I have a Nintendo Switch
and a bunch of physical game cartridges for it
because when 2020 hit,
I lived in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.
I was off grid.
I barely had any electricity.
I basically had to walk half a mile to my car
and like charge things in my car for a while
until I like got together enough money
to get some solar panels and some batteries and stuff, right?
Because I had not planned on having my cabin
be suddenly where I lived.
Well, like full-time not going
anywhere else lived and the first thing i got was a little tiny it's called a bit boy and it is a
like tiny game boy that has every single nintendo and super nintendo and sega genesis game pirated
onto it oh wow and immediately ordering that after the podcast?
And it costs like $40.
I don't know how much they cost now,
but they're not expensive
because they're little weird 3D printed pirated things.
And they like use almost no electricity.
And so it uses way less electricity than a cell phone.
And that saved my sanity.
And then when I finally got my shit together enough to get a Nintendo Switch and I could play Skyrim, So it uses way less electricity than a cell phone. And that saved my sanity.
And then when I finally got my shit together enough to get a Nintendo Switch and I could play Skyrim.
And it's not that I had nothing to do.
People are like, oh, you don't need to entertain yourself in crisis because you're busy.
It's like, look, you can probably only physically work on building your house to get it ready for the apocalypse you think you're living in for maybe 14 hours a day you know maybe 10 to 14 hours yeah and if you don't do manual labor right now it might be a lot less yeah like you have downtime not always in every situation but
like injured need to sit around and do something or you'll you know like
like entertainment is like actually really useful yes um and then yeah yeah if you if you bring a
paperback and i recommend it uh bring one that you've already read because you know you like it
i like normally don't reread books all that much, but when I need to turn my brain off,
a book that you've already read for a lot
of people is going to do better.
And if you haven't, you should get
a jump start on this by reading
my book Escape from Insel Island.
Oh, magnificent.
Alright, thanks.
So you can do the tabletop roleplaying game
that we did.
Yeah, there's an Escape from Inula Island tabletop role-playing game
that's coming out next year.
Well, there's a little zine version of it
that I think you can download now,
but it's going to be slightly better.
Yeah, keep that in your bucket bag.
The other thing I was going to plug
that I forgot about was
download the Google Maps onto your phone
or whatever brand apps you want,
maps you want,
and have a watch that doesn't need a battery.
I think that's super handy.
You can use the watch to tell the direction of south, which will obviously give you other
compass directions if you really need to, but you can tell the time.
You would, again, be surprised how people might imagine that after X happens, they won't
need to tell the time because it won't matter.
You probably will need to tell the time in most of your crises,
even to know if something has happened
or it's not happened, right?
And so being able to do that, it's very handy.
And having a watch that powers itself is a way to do that.
No, it makes sense.
I use one that doesn't power itself,
but it lasts three weeks or so on a charge
and vaguely charges itself from the sun
but not very efficiently um there's also and i know there's like now we're getting into the weeds
okay here's the other pitch it's fun when besides doing the basics you can nerd out about it and you
can do it cheaply because nerding out about it is free you can find your other friends that want to
talk about this bullshit and talk about what is bullshit. You don't have to go out and buy
fancy, crazy shit. Um, sometimes you want the fancy, crazy shit, but most of the stuff we're
talking about is super cheap. Um, and then you can have the joy of talking about the shit and
getting into the weeds with it. And, but there's a, um, um there's an app i think it's called keywix and
it lets you download wikipedia and read it on your phone offline yeah that would be good my other i've
just remembered one more thing that margaret and i talked about off michael a while ago uh because
this is the kind of people we are yeah uh it's called bank line uh oh yeah the yeah so the
tactical crowd are very into paracord uh because it's a little bit stronger and you
can pick out the inside lines and stuff.
It's also very shiny and can be annoying to not sometimes.
If you get some bank line and you need to construct a shelter, which is relatively unlikely,
you can.
If you need to repair your clothes and you have a needle, you can pick it apart and use
it for that but if you're bored like every everyone should know a few knots uh you know if you know how to do like a i guess
a figure eight knot if you know how to do a trucker's hitch a bowline knot um and you're
probably pretty good if you could do those honestly you can do a lot of stuff with just those
uh prussic maybe another friction hitch you can practice those when you're bored
it's fun it's okay it may not be as fun for you as it is for me because i'm that kind of person
but if you like to to learn stuff and then you can share that with someone else right it's fun
to teach people and then they can teach you a couple i have taught and learned not from people
from half a dozen nationalities in the last month and it's fun and it's cool to share it's also like when you're in a shit situation being like huh
having a moment where you're not thinking about the shit situation instead of thinking about
that's cool i learned that not yeah it's very nice actually and so yeah like a brazilian rodeo
guy taught me a couple of knots that's cool the other day yeah it was sweet we were helping we
had um dumpster dive some tents that susan g
kohman was throwing away and so we were helping put those up and we in one case we had the fly
sheet but not the tent so we were trying to work out how to make them to a tarp did some different
knots it was fun uh and bank line is cheaper than paracord probably don't need the paracord with a
fishing line inside in 99 of circumstances
uh let's get some bank line number 36 bank line okay and then the other the the cross punk
challenge is you just start fixing your clothes with dental floss oh yeah dental floss is great
for that yeah yeah yeah get a sail needle and dental floss and you'll smell minty fresh uh
yeah and when i make my emergency kits, I take little,
they're sort of sewing needle vials.
I like them better
than the little slidey kits
where everything gets lost all the time.
Yeah.
And I just get these little tiny vials.
They're clear
so everyone knows what's in it.
And I put safety pins,
regular sewing needles,
and leather sewing needles into them.
And then when you're sewing with leather,
the other thing that I recommend people carry it.
Okay, like in 2003, if you are a crust punk,
the things you need to have on you are at all times,
you need a folding knife, you need a headlamp,
you need a multi-tool with pliers,
and you need a sleeping bag.
And like, and a spork and a can opener.
Yeah.
And that's kind of it in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
Don't combine those things.
Don't be the person with the spork multi-tool
because you'll get beans in your knife.
Well, actually, that's called a hobo tool.
There actually are multi-tools that are...
Oh, sorry, a spork.
No, no, no.
It's a spoon on one side and a fork on the other.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Those suck.
Anything that folds,
you should keep it away from food.
Your folding knife is going to get so gross.
I mean, you'll do it anyway.
But I think we're kind of probably at time.
Yeah, I can keep going.
That's going to get tweezers.
But okay, this is enough stuff.
If you want to hear more of this kind of content.
Margaret has a whole other podcast.
Oh, I was going to say just trick them into having me on to talk about this stuff more.
But yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll have you back.
We'll do a whole other one.
But Margaret also has a whole other podcast, which you should listen to.
What's it called?
And where can people find it, Margaret?
Well, okay.
So the prepper one is called Live Like the World is Dying.
Your podcast for It Feels Like the End Times.
It comes out every Friday.
And I also have a Cool Zone Media podcast
called Cool People Did Cool Stuff
where I talk about history
and about cool people who did cool stuff.
And James has been on both of these podcasts.
So if you want to hear us
continue to banter about things,
there's so many more options options available to you yeah uh maybe download them for uh those terrible
times when you when you just need the calming voice of me and margaret talking about bags that's
right we'll just do it like just to like it's okay you're going to get through this. I know that things seem bad right now, and they are bad, but it's okay.
We'll just do a whole hour of that.
Yeah, we'll do an hour of that.
I'm proud of you.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We will be your anarchist affirmations.
Yeah.
That's another podcast.
This has been It Could Happen Here.
Thank you, Margaret.
That was wonderful.
All right, bye.
It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.
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