Couple of weeks ago, I blogged my surprise at buying freeze-dried and dehydrated storage foods at Wal-Mart.

Well, today I went back and bought a couple more #10 cans. This time the shelves (nearly denuded at last visit) were chock full and topped with placards that could be seen several aisles away: “Prepare for Emergency.”

As I was checking out the selection and prices, a man wandered by, looked at the big buckets of rice, concluded he didn’t need that much, and headed off. A few seconds later, a woman’s voice said, “I wish they had these in smaller cans so I could try them.”

I explained, “Oh, they do on their website. The prices aren’t as good as here, but they’re really nice people and the foods are good quality.” Augason Farms should pay me a commission for the sales pitch I gave the lady. Packed in the U.S. Family-owned company. Most items preservative-free. Etc. etc.

As I went on, I realized that the woman was a Wal-Mart employee. So I told her it was uncommon for Wal-Marts outside of Mormon country to carry storage foods and that I’d even written a letter to thank the manager for doing so. She seemed proud that “her” store was pioneering.

At that point I noticed that the rice man had circled around and was listening in. “They’re probably doing some market testing,” he said.

“It must be working, then,” the employee nodded, “The product is really selling.”

The man, who had dismissed rice buckets minutes earlier, picked up a can of butter powder and remarked, “With what they’re doing to the dollar, we’re all going to be needing to eat this sort of stuff soon.”

I swear, I’m constantly surprised at these little encounters that reveal so much interest and awareness among ordinary folk.

If fedgov paranoids want to hunt for anti-government subversives, they don’t need to do it in woodsy militia enclaves, at protests, or among sovereigns or Tea Partiers. Or tattoo parlors, surplus stores, hobby shops, or banks, for that matter.

Just stand in the food aisles at Wal-Mart.

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• Remember those strange underwater dog photos that went viral last month? Turns out the photographer is getting the success he deserves (which often doesn’t happen with ‘Net phenomena) and sharing his goodness with shelter dogs. (Tip o’ hat to F.)
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This is probably just as copyrighted as copyrighted can be, so I’ll take it down it anybody protests. But TS sent this in light of my recent Neighbor from Hell problems and it was too funny not to post. Prolly won’t be trying that technique any time soon.

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• From a recent comment section: Here’s advice from a guy who found himself on the receiving end of other peoples’ hurricane bug-outs.
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• “America Will Need Black Markets to Survive.”
• And finally … your awwwwww moment for today.

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• Real world disaster preparedness. The other day in comments, clark posted this link to a Katrina survivor’s experience and observations. Very much worth a read. I particularly liked this page that sums it all up.
• Simple, clever experiment reveals why we need to keep moving for health’s sake. One of the reasons, anyhow.
• Murphy’s Law. Your chances of a screw-up can now be calculated. Except … er … doesn’t Murphy’s Law ensure that the calculations are likely to be screwed up?
• “Hijacking the General Welfare Clause.” Historical research from wonderful new blogger AgoristDon.
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• The Monkees. Yes, the FBI investigated even that innocuous, TV-made crew of pop-tots.

Some of the above already appeared on my Twitter feed. Apologies to anybody who got the same news from me twice, but I’m trying to strike a miscellany balance between the blog and Twitter.

And finally: The Three Little Pigs as covered in the modern mainstream and alternative media:

(Speaking of Murphy’s Law, this is weird. On the preview of this post, I see the Three Little Pigs video. But when I post it, on my system at least, it turns into the One Happy Dog video I blogged the other day. I’m working on it, but if you see the wrong video, just go here.)

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… that I just bought these at Wal-Mart?

The nearest Wal-Mart, in what passes for the local Big City, is one of the older, smaller ones. When I was there two weeks ago, they didn’t have any such thing as this. Then yesterday I got an excited email from a friend, saying she’d spotted a large — but diminishing — array of storage foods on Saturday.

Had to see for myself. Sure enough. They had everything from bulk buckets of oatmeal and wheat berries to #10 cans of fruits, vegetables, soup mixes, TVP, and more. “Had” is the operative word — as in “used to have.” The shelves were about half empty, with probably a quarter of the items (including, surprisingly, all the hard red winter wheat berries) completely sold out.

A clerk told me they’d been carrying these products for less than a week.

Prices were good, too — nearly $5 under Augason Farms’ own price on the apricots, nearly $3 under their price on the chili. And no shipping. This could be a great, painless way to build mid-term food storage. Just budget for a can or two every month.

Is your local Wal-Mart selling this stuff?

And back to the original question: Is it a good sign that prep-consciousness has now made it down to Wal-Mart level? Or is it a bad sign, that Mr. and Mrs. Average are scared enough — of who knows what? — to be stashing #10 cans and bulk-food buckets in their pantries?

—–

ADDED: I should mention that there’s no large Mormon population in this area, nor is there any notable contingent of New Age earth-change/Maya apocalypse/Planet X/waiting-for-disaster believers that would prompt a middle-of-the-road store to lay in such a variety of storage foods. This particular store serves as stolid a working-class population as you could imagine.

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This is seriously interesting, considering the source.

But seriously, Wyoming, an aircraft carrier? And a military draft?

You Wyomegians — and I know there are a few who read this blog — are you sensing some tongues stuck in cheeks here?

(H/T Jesse Walker on Twitter.)

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• Did you know there’s an organization called Dogs Against Romney? And that one of its members just got stopped by a cop for doing (in effigy) what Romney once did to his family dog?
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• Tell me, please, are you even the teeny-tiniest bit surprised at this so-called news?
• Introducing the government’s latest unpaid spy. (Tip o’ hat to D.)
• Not sure what this implies about the U.S. electorate. But DA, who found the link, thinks it has more to do with feeling disenfranchised than with lack of interest. Might also speculate that in 2008 young people were excited by Obama, while these days the only person who could possibly be excited by him might be Michelle, in bed. And even that’s dubious.

Finally, last week I linked to a new National Geographic series that looked as if it might be about to profile all “doomsday preppers” as laughable loons. H, who first called my attention to it, has watched the first episodes and says it’s nowhere near as supercilious as it might have been.

He does wonder, though, about the wisdom of some of these folks, outing themselves …

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• Good for people who’ve suffered brain injuries that affect speech. Bad in the long run for privacy.
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• Of course the lie about inflation is even bigger than this says.
  
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