Hugh,
While doing my bi-annual “Earthquake Bag” check (the politically correct term in the People’s Republic of Kalifornia for a “Bug Out Bag”), I stumbled across a fundamental demonstration of my own personal Normalcy Bias. I discovered one of the key tools of survival I had been skipping for years– back up eyes.
As we age, we are almost all faced with the problem of correcting the vision of our aging eyes. Without this correction, most of us would have a hard time even identifying the contents of our BoB, much less using some of the contents. It could certainly aid to an untimely demise.
Flash forward a week later to when I picked up my new glasses from my optometrist and fellow prepper; I asked, “What do you do?”. He shared his inexpensive and effective solution. Below is his reply:
“Look, you just bought two pairs of very nice glasses from me and your vision is now back to 100%. But put those old glasses back on and you’re probably at 90%, and until you came in for new glasses you were doing fine at 90%.”
“So take those old glasses and stuff them in your ‘Earthquake Bag’, and you’ll do fine. I’ve been putting old glasses in my BoB that are now over five years old, and they work ‘good enough’ as backups for a bug out or emergency situation. I keep old prescription glasses for me in both my wife’s and my BoBs. Without working glasses, both you and I will be dead a lot quicker if the SHTF.”
“And in sunlight, you’ll probably be at 99% as your eye’s irises will close up, improving your vision further. But here is another thing you should do. Include some higher magnification reading glasses in your BoB. And get some of the highest power lenses that work for you– 3-4 Diopter if you need them. Get them for close up work, good enough to see the detail for stitching up a wound, getting debris out of your kid’s eye, or fixing that AR-15 you love so much. Personally, I keep an extra pair of reading glasses in every medical kit I have.”
“You don’t have to spend a bunch of money; you can pick up decent reading glasses at Dollar Tree and other places for a buck. You have no excuse not to be able to see up close and personal!” – M.M.