I don’t know how I became the lucky winner, but somehow I wound up as our company’s safety warden. Really I think it’s because I’m the lowest man on the totem pole who still has the gumption to tell the COO of the company that, no, he can’t go get a cookie from the kitchen, he needs to get his ass outside because the fire alarm is going off. Don’t mess with me in an emergency. I don’t care who you are, I will drag your grown-ass adult self out of the building by the ear if I have to. So really, I guess it makes complete sense why I’m the safety warden. This responsibility comes not only with the flashlight, clipboard and ever-so-attractive day-glow orange vest, but also mandatory attendance at the building’s annual safety warden meeting.
This meeting is comprised of the same things every year. Coffee, snacks, some-what amusing anecdotes and the same safety information. Occasionally there will be a new tid-bit thrown in, but for the most part same-o same-o. At this point, I’m pretty sure I could give the speech. The majority of this speech is all about preparedness. After all, I do live in Southern California and earthquakes are a regular occurrence around here. Heck, they’re so regular that anything under a 6 doesn’t even attract attention outside of the immediately affected area. One day I thought I had drunk WAY too much coffee, but it turned out we had just had a series of low grade tremors. Go figure.
Yet every time I attend, I get a bug up my ass about preparedness. Because, well, I’m extremely type-A and I don’t like to be caught unawares. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m already pretty damn prepared. I have an emergency earthquake kit at home, one in my car and one at work. Out of everybody I know, I am the most prepared. But every damn time I go to this meeting I leave with this forboding sense of IT’S NOT ENOUGH! I inevitably think of something that I’m missing from the kits, or a better way to store them, or think that I don’t have enough food or water or bandages or something.
So I will be spending this weekend going through my kits and strategizing for the worst case scenario. Not because I’m expecting or worried about the worst case scenario, but should it arise, you can bet your sweet ass that I’ll be ready. Now does anybody know where I can buy a machete?
