Neill and I sat transfixed intensely listening to the news correspondent speak. We knew this day would come.
Although my youngest is the spitting image of his father, he definitely carries a double dose of my family’s genes. That means when a crisis hits, be it a weather occurrence, an unprecedented dip in the Dow, or a health epidemic, he and I are the first to react.
My brother and I are the first to admit that we come from a long line of alarmists. Our ability to immediately become transfixed on any sign of possible danger goes centuries back in our DNA structure.
Our spouses scoff and our friends make fun, but to this day, our uncanny ability to sense danger miles ahead, has resulted in four decades without a broken bone, hospital stay or anything more than a cough!
When this new antibiotic resistant bacteria makes its way to Tennessee – few will survive, so as I see it, you are either going to be with me or against me.
As the correspondent explained the details of this dangerous, new bacteria having just reached the U.S., I started making a mental checklist: canned goods, hand sanitizer, face masks, batteries, chocolate, flashlight, bunker.
All very doable except for the bunker, which with every crisis, is always my Achilles heal.
But although we do not have a bunker we do live far out in the country, which is basically a bunker.
“We’ll be ok Neill. We have a creek so you and daddy can fish for food and we will live off the land. We’ll be fine.”
“Live off the land? You don’t even cook!” remarked my eldest who carries only Kane genes. Calm, cool, collected….she can be extremely annoying at times.
Neill and I just turned up the television volume, as we didn’t need any commentary from someone who obviously hadn’t watched the movie “Contagion” as many times as we had.
We continued to watch and listen as the correspondent explained the symptoms of the latest microbe: body aches, chills, fever and vomiting. I tried not to panic.
While I had yet to experience chills, fever and vomiting, I couldn’t deny I was feeling a little achy.
“Madison, go get my i-Pad, I need to google what they mean by body aches.”
“You are not serious. How many people with multi-drug resistant mycobacterium tuberculosis have you come in contact with in Lebanon?”
And while she definitely had a point….my ancestral gene pool had not come this far to be thwarted by rational thinking and common sense.
“And while you’re at it, bring me a pen. Neill and I are staying in tonight to start on our list of …. who is with us or against us!”
– Written By Angel Kane
