Down a rabbit hole

Jack Deatherage

(10/2022) The DW looks in the shopping cart as we approach checkout. "Did I get anything to eat?"

I glance in the cart we've barely covered the bottom of. Canned and dry dog food, laundry and dish machine detergent, a box of black tea, a gallon of milk, three 12 packs of store brand diet cola, box of microwave popcorn, can of Spam, a can of chicken or tuna, a few cans of cheap sardines, a bag of bagels, a few heads of broccoli, a small head of cabbage, some canned leafy greens and assorted condiments.

"Uhh... the canned chicken and bagels?" The bill, minus the DW's senior discount, store club card and a coupon or two, comes to $101. On the drive home I ask, "What would you eat if me and the other dog weren't around."

Without more'n a second's thought she replies, "Cup of soups."

I suspect she'd dine occasionally in at least three of the local eateries she can walk to in under five minutes. Places she hasn't visited since the offspring and his DW moved to the nation's cat litter box - Florida. I keep urging her to find someone to dine out with, but she seems determined to suffer some odd penance for having married me. I think just being married to me should be penance enough, but evidently she's able to bear an even heavier burden.

Grocery day isn't over as we head up the mountain to a small Mom & Pop grocery store where we spend another $50 on things we can't find in the flat lands at prices we're willing to pay, or can't find at all in the three supermarkets I'll spend money in. (The DW keeps warning me we'll run out of stores if I keep losing my temper and abandoning them at the rate I've been going since before COVID was unleashed upon humanity. Self-checkout is my biggest bugaboo and has caused me to quit at least two supermarkets. "Bah! We'll shop the Mom & Pops. They actually appreciate our business.")

In the last six months we've cut snack foods and desserts, as well as shrimp and fresh fish from our diets. The quarters of beef and halves of hogs that used to fill our freezer have long been absent from our lives. (The DW is shutting down the freezer as there is so little in it these days.) We haven't bought a pot roast this year and rarely bring home more than four pounds of ground beef - the cheapest grind we can bring ourselves to eat. Pork and chicken rarely gets eaten at all. This summer we haven't visited any of the five takeout places we used to frequent. There have been weeks when the only meat we ate was a gifted haunch of dead deer I added to a crock of root veggies, aromatics and a handful of rice. However, we're still spending more money at the supermarkets than we ever have before.

It's no secret I didn't pay much attention to my classes in school once the Sisters at Holy Spirit in Columbus Ohio almost taught me how to read in 1960. Still, I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing rampant inflation at least as bad as what I remember from the Nixon, Carter and early Reagan years. Oddly, I'm hearing the Feds no longer calculate inflation as they did in those days. Is that so they can assure us peasants that inflation is currently under 9% rather than the 15 or 16% it would be by the old way of calculating it?

Whatever the world's geniuses of smart are preparing to inflict upon the global peasantry, it ain't likely to be pleasant for an aging village idiot. I've been advised by escapees from communist countries that I should be aware starvation is more likely my lot rather than a merciful lead pill insert between my ears.

"Jack. Bullets cost money. Not feeding you costs the rulers nothing."

I find myself ransacking YouTube for videos on gardening, food preservation and primitive living. The state's Marina public libraries catalog has sent me an almost weekly supply of survival, wild foods, herbalist medicinals, canning, drying and salt/smoke curing books. Working out of the more useful books I've been learning to "put up" a few food items just in case the global economy actually collapses as the globalists' Great Reset goes into effect.

And if this Great Reset doesn't do more than slightly judder the economy?

Well hurrah for me. I'll have occupied my declining years with learning new skills. Perhaps finding myself with interesting food stuffs- Swiss chard kimchi or stuffed cabbage leaves made from whole heads of cabbage- brine fermented using a Bulgarian recipe- dumped in my feedbag before the DW ties it under my chin.

Somewhen, I heard that teaching a subject was a good way to learn it. To that end I've offered the local branch library several lectures on topics currently captivating my attention: Basic Fermentation (a fav of mine), Non-Perishable Foods (noodles, hardtack and Hellfire Stew) and Secrets of Micro Greens (a subject I'm going to have to do a crash course study of to have even a slight clue of what I'll be babbling about). Librarian Penny has given me dates and times for each lecture, but I'm not promoting them here. People wanting to see me stammer, stumble and fumble can seek out that information themselves. I'm busy enough trying to organize my lecture notes and proof whatever recipes I'll be suggesting to whichever attendee accidentally wanders in during the soliloquy - urrr lecture.

Beyond learning a subject by teaching it, I find committing myself to volunteering to present a lecture a suitable way of keeping my bobble-headedness in check. I'm forced to stay focused on the promised topic when researching a topic constantly presents me with new, unexplored topics that my instincts urge me to pursue. For instance - fermentation includes turning sugars into alcohol. Alcohol can be a medicine, especially if combined with medicinal herbs such as St. John's wort, ginger root, elderberries, marijuana, or immature opium poppy seedpods. All of which leads to the harm such "medicines" can cause, just as the laboratory concocted drugs can do, if used more often than they should be. Hell, the drug overuse stories I've witnessed and experienced could be a lecture of their own.

Then there's always a chance I'll make some stupid mistake with a recipe and harm myself before a lecture date. If there's a wrong way to ferment something, I'm likely to find it, though so far I've been aware enough to toss such mistakes and begin over with closer attention to the instructions. Hmm... If I survived a nasty case of food poisoning I'd have another topic to do a deep dive into!

Oo! I just thought of another idea. If I lecture on dry brining meat (curing) I might accidentally cut off a finger and get to talk about how salt cured finger tastes compared to salted pig's knuckles!

I'll tell a man, and a woman - Heck, even a child! There's so much to learn and play at! However, "focus" is my watchword! Though an occasional "Jack!" From Librarian Penny also works.