Tip Day: Have a Plan & Have a Roll of Bubble Wrap

Worrywart? Construction Worker? Crossing Guard?

I was going to do a post about the Halloween flash mob at a subway station in Beijing. Halloween was a night off from worry for me,other than my costume, which was not really a costume at all, since I went as an ambiguous worrywart.

But then I worried about highlighting all the fun in a Beijing subway station while so many people are suffering from the damage of the Sandy superstorm. So instead I decided to share a new tip.

I like to come up with a plan or solution when a disaster scenario visits my thoughts, and disaster scenarios must have been prominent deep in my subconscious, because this morning I awoke during a dream in which elderly people were disembarking from balconies while giant flames shot out from open windows and sliding doors of their apartment building.

The reassuring part was that those in flight were seated in chairs that I believed would land right side up and save the sitters.

Even before 9-11 I wondered what I would do if confronted with the terrifying choice to either jump or burn. Ideas came to me this morning before I opened my eyes.

The first plan I proposed to myself was to tie a mattress to my body. That would never work, because I can barely budge my mattress to tuck in a sheet. So I thought about tying on pillows, an old childhood fallback of mine, so to speak, that as I grew older seemed less and less effective.

And then it came to me: bubble wrap, the kind with large bubbles. All I would need for my jump would be a big roll of it under my bed, where I used to keep an escape chain ladder until I noticed that the hooks meant to hold it to the window sash were too small to fit over my deep window ledge.

I hope no one ever needs to use my wrap-yourself-in-bubble-wrap tip, but you can never be too careful.

And I hope everyone’s lives that were affected by the storm are back to a good normal soon!

Do you think about disaster scenarios and what you would do if they came to pass? Any tips?

For news of my upcoming memoir, Confessions of a Worrywart: Husbands, Lovers, Mothers, and Others, sign up for updates.

Check out some of my Life Goes Strong posts:

*Are You Prepared If A Tree Falls On Your House?

*Renovation Basics, What You Should Know If You Remodel

*Easy, Inexpensive Do-It-Yourself Picture Framing

*8 Great Ways To Deter Break-Ins

*Can Separate Bedrooms Save Or Destroy A Marriage?

*Stock Your Kitchen To Reduce & Maintain Your Waistline

*My Husband’s Final Days At Home & His Burial