Civil defense

Phooey! Bird flu and tsunamis are nothing – we’re selling our house! And that entails a much more sophisticated civil defense plan.

The mobile buzzes, agent’ll be round in ten.

No panic – we’re ready.

G runs to the closet and pulls out the vacuum.
I grab the bag from another cupboard – it’s already packed – nappies, wallet, tin of food, dummy, jumpers.

Then I pull in washing and hurl it in the two big plastic garden buckets known as Gubbas.

G vacuums the rug in the lounge and pushes the machine back into the cupboard.

I open the dishwasher and throw everything I can find into it.

I grab Bax by the hand and run to the car then go back for the gubbas of washing and the emergency bag.
G pulls the rubbish bag out of the bin. Picks it up in one hand and Izzie up in the other.

Everything’s tossed into the car.

We grab the dog and we’re off.

We drive around the block a couple of times.

Our kids are beginning to think this is normal behaviour.

We’ve got it down to a fine art and it takes us no more than 3 minutes! Not bad. Of course if a tsunami really was about to come ashore we might not have the allotted 3 minutes – in that case I don’t think we’d both vacuuming the rug.