Walk into the house, with two cranky crying kids who have just spent two hours in the car on a rainy day driving back home after a crazy stressful day, and make them dinner. Now.

With the power out. And you with no idea where your emergency supplies are, or how long the power has been out. Or how far it reaches. Is the power on down the street? In the county? Anywhere in a 200 mile radius? And just how much breast milk was there stored in the freezer? If that goes off, you can’t write it as a loss into your taxes.

Other than that, dinner now should be a breeze! Did I mention the 18 gallons of water on the floor?

When I was a kid, I lived in a rather safe area of the country. Well, disaster safe. If the power went out, it was a matter of hours, and we just ate sandwiches and played with flashlights and candles and went to bed early.

Then I moved to Florida. Wow. Hurricanes. Boarding up windows. Generators. Andrew. (I didn’t move here until after Andrew - but it was burned into people’s psyche and fears.) The first few hurricane warnings I rode out with my hub he loved. I’d cook every darn thing in the house before we lost power to the electric stove. A couple dozen hurricane warnings later - I’ve relaxed a bit, but I’m ready.

So when I walked into the house to the above scenario, dinner actually was a bit of a snap. We’d luckily recently had a party, so the food in the fridge we’d need a lot went into the cooler (borrowed, leaking water everywhere!). I left my breastmilk stash where it was; the power, it turns out, was only out in a small area and had only gone out moments earlier.

I keep a few working flashlights stored here and there (including a few that light up when the power goes out) and we were eating cold cuts and party leftovers with a minimum of fridge-openings (I have a mild ability to keep track of what is in there using only the power of my mind ;)).

But it was a good dry run for the next hurricane (what I expect will be Tropical Depression Fourteen/Melissa?) if it does turn our way. At that point we didn’t have a grill, so dinner was first cold cuts, second fresh veggies, third canned and dry goods. If we got to a third or fourth meal, we’d likely hear the hum of neighborhood generators and start re-acquainting ourselves with the neighbors again.

But now? We’ve got a grill (insert Tim Allen-esque Grunts here). And it’s got a burner for cooking upon (grunt). Except for a lack of ice, I think we’re pretty well set, long power outage or short. But I’ll take none, if I can.