In which she courts the death plague

[zeborah]

Things that don't seem like an excellent idea #1: Rubbing a cut on your knuckle as you go to empty your chemical toilet in the communal tank. I don't think it came into contact with anything more problematic than the basically-clean exterior of my own tank. I rubbed hand sanitiser into it until it stung while I was there, and when I got home washed it thoroughly and slathered with more hand sanitiser and then Dettol antiseptic cream. No signs of gangrene yet.

--

In my previous post I meant to wax more philosophical on the progression from the early day or few of relying on our own stocks of water; then a week or so of queuing for water; then boiling all water, and now six and a half weeks later being able to wash an open cut in it straight from the tap.

(Still to come: not needing to conserve it for the sake of the sewage system; and not needing to have it chlorinated anymore. Not sure which will happen first.)

...I don't have much philosophical to say about it. Just that it's fascinating to watch the regaining of civilisation. When I see people on Twitter complaining about how we haven't fixed all our roads yet (apparently Japan has or something? I know they've fixed some roads super-rapidly, but all of them to brand-new? I'm sceptical); or people in the news complaining that a hotel and Civil Defense are conspiring to keep them from retrieving their NZ$27,000 engagement ring (the building's yellow-stickered! that means it's safe for the public to wander through in search of a ring, right?!) I can only assume that either they're really really really tired, which is perfectly understandable, or that they don't have a clue just how bad the earthquake hit us.

And when it's a Tweep who lives out of town, or, well, the $27,000 engagement ring speaks for itself -- I find myself favouring one of these possibilities over the other.

The thing is, lots of things broke. People have fixed a lot of things. And it's not anyone's fault, nor even government's, that the huge lot of things that have been fixed remains almost overwhelmingly outnumbered by the lots of things that broke. There's a whole scaling issue here, folks! <flail>

I think I shall walk to my parents' this evening instead of busing bussing going by bus; see if it loosens up some of these rocks in my back.

Comments

[keieeeye]

There was also apparently NO LOOTING in Japan. None. At all. Zero. (Presumably this includes people foraging for food, since that tends to get counted officially.) Orrrr it could be that that just doesn't fit the media stories about Japan properly, and because it's so far away the media is the only real narrative we have, unlike here where we have quite a thorough grassroots network.

People from out of town make me yearn for the button to backhand people through the internet. And anyone who would buy a $27,000 engagement ring lives in a reality just so far removed from mine that I don't even give a crap about their problems.

[ex_heleninwales860]

Some people seem to have no appreciation of danger. People in Northern Ireland have been ignoring the Road Closed signs preventing them from driving under an underpass and moved traffic cones in order to drive past a lorry bomb.

On the other hand, one does wonder why the police left a lorry bomb apparently guarded only by a Road Closed sign and a few traffic cones...

[zeborah]

See, the drivers probably just thought it was left-over from some completed roadworks or something. What the police need is a "Road Closed: Lorry Bomb" sign.

[ex_heleninwales860]

That's what G and I decided. In fact we Googled and discovered that there are already signs available that more or less say this.

Something like this perhaps?



Though it should be in a triangle to turn it into a warning.

[zeborah]

Oh my. That would do exactly.