(Psst: The FTC wants me to remind you that this website contains affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase from a link you click on, I might receive a small commission. This does not increase the price you'll pay for that item nor does it decrease the awesomeness of the item. ~ Daisy)
With all the recent talk in the news about “Doomsday Preppers” and the demonization in the media, you have to be aware that you’re considered a little….different. The fact that you are self-reliant is such an oddity to most that, frankly, they find you to be either nuts, a little bit scary, or both. According to the US government, we are all extremists on the verge of committing depraved acts of terrorism.
Are you one of those crazy preppers? Here are the top 30 signs, should you ever be the subject of a nationwide manhunt, that you too will be considered a “Crazy Prepper on the Loose“:
- Pantries are so mainstream…you have food stashed in strange places in every room of the house.
- You have enough toilet paper to get through a year of uncomfortable digestive upsets…occurring with 6 people simultaneously
- Speaking of which, you possess at least 3 different ways to use the bathroom, only one of which is an actual bathroom.
- Your kids know what OPSEC means…at the age of 4.
- You have topographical maps of your area…plural.
- When you’re forced to interact with “the others” you feel like you are awkwardly censoring your true opinions
- You think nothing of treating an injury or illness yourself because “what if there was no doctor?”
- Paintball is no longer just a fun way to spend an afternoon – it’s called “training”.
- With every major purchase, you contemplate going for the off-grid version.
- You have more manual tools than power tools.
- You’ve washed entire loads of laundry by hand for either necessity or practice. (And not just your dainties…we’re talking about jeans and stuff!)
- Your kids are not afraid of guns…or fingers pointed like guns…or pastries in the shape of guns…or drawings of guns.
- When house hunting you look for multiple heat and water sources.
- You store food in buckets…lots of buckets…like, maybe even a whole room full of buckets.
- You garden with a determination and time commitment normally reserved for endurance athletes training for an Ironman triathlon.
- If you don’t have a water source on your property, you have put in miles of footwork searching for one nearby, and have mapped multiple discreet routes to and from the source, and figured out how to haul the water back to your house on each route.
- Your first instinct when hearing about some event on the mainstream news is skepticism. (False flag event, anyone?)
- You believe that FEMA camps are real and that you are most likely on “The List”.
- Instead of CNN, you have alternative news sites bookmarked in your favorites on your computer.
- You have enough coffee/tea/favorite-caffeinated-item-of-choice to last you through 3 apocalypses.
- You have enough over the counter medications stashed away to outfit a small-town pharmacy.
- You have an instinctive mistrust of most cops or anyone working for an alphabet agency.
- You could sink a ship with the weight of your stored ammo.
- Looking for a fun weekend outing with the kids? Forget amusement parks – the shooting range is where it’s at..
- When the power goes out, you calmly light the candles and proceed with whatever you had been dong previously.
- A longer-term power outage is called “practice”.
- If a like-minded person comes over to your house, they’ll realize you are “one of them” by seeing your reading material. Other folks won’t even notice. The FBI would call your copy of The Prepper’s Blueprint and your James Wesley Rawles fiction “subversive literature”.
- Your children carry a modified bug-out kit in their school backpacks.
- You can and dehydrate food with the single-minded fervor of a Amish grandmother facing a 7 year drought.
- Calling 911 is not part of your home security plan.
What are some other habits or possessions that would have a wild-eyed picture of you on every news station in the country? Share the signs that you are one of those crazy preppers in the comments section below.
Love it. I think my family have some of quality. Lol. Great read.
Great post Daisy. I wonder how many others were laughing out loud as you pegged their activities so precisely. Well done. 🙂
31. You have two (or more) of everything important, well, because “one is none.”
32. You know exactly how many Mountain House cases it takes to make a base for a single bed.
33. You have vacuum packed underwear in a plastic tub stashed somewhere in your house.
34. You have a decoy safe to steer crooks away from the real safe.
35. You keep lists, lots of lists, of EVERYTHING.
36. You have a black belt in Craigslist.
37. Your family is no longer surprised when you announce, “Hey, we’re going to learn how to make (insert anything here)!
38. You have more medical supplies than the local ER.
Excellent additions….and so appropo!
Your children carry a modified bug-out kit in their school backpacks…
and they HOMEschool
Oh that’s a good one!
…how about a new item —-
“24a”..: take the family to the “dunes” at the gun club instead of the beach, and instead of building sand castles, seine for spent lead. Only during times of very low usage of the gun club,of course. Regular beach sand bucket &shovel work just fine for this, only add a six inch pot strainer. Yeah, I know lead is “poisonous”. Take some water to wash everybody hands with before taking the lead back for either re-sizing or re-smelting… Off times at the gun club can net some beautiful brass also, even if not reloading. How much does your local reclamation center pay for brass and lead eh? An no, this is not some kind of satire.
39. The Co-op and “Kostco” know you by your first names and know better than to ask questions about your purchases.
40. The Agway always purchases extra cases of canning jars and lids for you without having to ask. They also set aside pallets for you.
41. The neighbors are not surprised when you plant a half acre of various grains and volunteer to help harvest.
42. Your collection of “How to…” books is bigger than the library’s and some of the library’s books came from your recent purge.
You buy hard alchohol and you don’t even drink it….just for barter
bingo! in the little bitty bottles.
You need to get on SurvivalistBlog.net and read “you might be a prepper if” based on Jeff’s You might be a redneck if stories. Don’t think any of the same on here!!!
Funny list for sure, but it’s assumption that preppers are loners, just adds to the problem. Pam touched upon that, but to ameliorate this problem I propose some points with the community aspect in mind:
x+1) Several shops around you know what containers you are interested in, so when you get your lunch they bring them out for you (1 gallon glass and plastic jars)
x+2) Your neighbors separate their compost for you into a)chicken food b) garden food and c)other
x+3) They and their friends also know your recently acquired skills, and what you like to eat so they can bring appropriate food when they bring over a broken hoe to weld or a knife to sharpen.
x+4) People in your part of town remember you best from being willing to loan out multiple generators during the last storm when electricity was out for a whole week.
x+5) More and more people want to taste your sauer kraut and dehydrated fruit and pester you to show them your composting toilet.
x+6) You got your first request from a car-owner neighbor to bring home their freshly purchased tall ladder that doesn’t fit into their car with your bicycle trailer, and they offer firewood for the task.
-Being a man you are no longer embarrassed to buy tampons and kotex because they make great bandages.
-You scour travel size ailes because they fit better in bug out bags and they make great barter items.
-You check out the garden center and pest control section for potential weapons.
-You have begun to feel OCD when shopping wondering if something you want will help your preps.
-Most of your favorites for YouTube and bookmarks now contain more prepper sites than cute animal sites.
-Christmas and birthday presents have a prepper theme.
guilty as charged
#4 is my favourite. My 4 year old son also calls his treehouse his BOL and his bike his BOV
–You have a BO bag of dog food/supplies, which he/she carries.
-Even kitty has a BO bag with essentials, and a roomy pet taxi to lounge in the car in, and kitty likes walking on the leash knows basic commands as a any good dog would.
i know a prepper who has dogs and a horse. she has six bobs lined up next to her front door.
You have been “field-testing” your tribulation equipment for at least three years now…
You have elected NOT to purchase greater armament, because you plan on upgrading, with your future assailent’s weaponry…
You recognize that only the Living God can protect you completely, so you stay aware, that you might protect your neighbors…
You are located ABOVE your water source…
LASTLY, (please pay attention here)- a “FRIEND”, is someone who you can call at 3:00 in the morning…to help you bury a body. Instead of riddling you with queries, he shows-up 10 minutes later- WITH A SHOVEL. Now, re-assess how many friends you have…
-stay frosty-
SPIRITBLADE
I would guess you are short one friend, the other is coming to help you bury one.
The “Friend” is someone you call to pickup up after the burial is completed the BEST Friend was there from the beginning!
Never thought about it…but, I guess I AM a prepper.
You have a stock pile of incontinence briefs in your front room and you aren’t incontinent. Hey… They were free…
Everything I need is attached to my neck. Anything else is a bonus
EDC includes a knife, firearm w/extra mag, flashlight, mylar blanket, chapstick and an ounce of silver — and that’s for the wife when she’s walking the dog!
Guilty of at least #12 and #19 and #4 (he was 7 not 4).
You have a toilet seat that fits on a bucket.
You live within 1/2 mile of a creek, have municipal water AND a well, and you have life straws and assorted other ways to make water potable. You constantly keep a lookout, no matter where you are, for things that may be used as weapons if the need arises, at the same time thinking out possible scenarios where the need MAY arise.
You size up everyone you walk by as a possible threat and know how you will take them out if trouble starts.
You always sit in a restaurant facing towards the door so you can see who is coming in and always have an alternate exit plan.
Your kids know where to meet not if but when the power goes out or there is an economic collapse where you can’t get hold of each other.
You have Google maps printed out of alternative routes to take to your bug-out location that avoid major cities.
You actually know what EMP stands for.
You have enough wood cut and stacked to form a barricade around your whole property. All 100 acres!
The number of acres of plant-able land you have is a status symbol amongst your friends.
Everytime there is a small household “disaster” (like no functioning toilets in the house. True! It happened for over a week!!) You just grab your Emergency Supplies and announce “Now aren’t you glad I’m a Prepper!!!”
I relate to many of the above. As I read I laughed and shook my head. Honestly I can spot a prepper out of a line up. Fun post!
You patiently explain to non-prepping family members that you’re NOT a hoarder. A hoarder doesn’t have a detailed inventory of EVERYTHING in your “stash” as well as a list indicating where everything is stashed! Also, a hoarder’s home LOOKS like a mess. A Prepper’s home is arranged so that most of the prepper items are unnoticeable!
LOL @ #2. Isn’t it ironic that number 2 is about… well… number 2?
2a. In addition to plentiful toilet paper, you also have toilet paper TABLETS and you and your family know how to use them… because you actually have used them.
Whenever you visit a new neighbor or friend’s home, you check out their bookcase to see if they are a “friendly” or not!
Have a solar photovoltaic array, a wind turbine, a sealed water tank holding at least 1500 gallons, a heavily insulated storage room packed with long exp. date foods and temp controlled by that solar/turbine array, have a chainsaw, spare chains, gas and oil for it, a variety of means to cook, charcoal, LPG, wood stove, Coleman camp stove, outside of the home stove or range. Have a large wash tub, a good supply of laundry, dish and hand soaps. Some laying hens if you have the zoning and free range room. One hen in summer will provide enough eggs for 2 people. Have a smoker, electric, wood or ? big enough to do a few pounds of meat strips. Binoculars. Knives. Magnifying glass. Good quality compass. Backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, bug repellent, lanterns, kerosene, unleaded gas.