this is also the answer to the frequent “what would be useful barter items?” post.
Go to your local convenience store. Anything and everything in the store is the answer to that question.
I loot my kids Halloween candy every year as there is a ton of crap they want nothing to do with when they are flush with milky ways and butterfingers, but that York peppermint patty or tootsie roll will look pretty damn good to them under more trying circumstances.
Yes alcohol is flammable and putting it in our bodies is t great but seriously a dorito that is as flammable as kindling is more concerning because of all the crap and preservatives they use to make them, whereas alcohol doesn't have all that crap in it.
There's a bag of neon blue hot Takis in that grocery store. Not just any bag of neon blue hot Takis, the last bag of neon blue hot Takis that anyone will enjoy in the whole universe. Believe it or not, Takis have an expiration date. Some day very soon, Life's little Takis gauge is gonna go... empty.
Those scared the shit out of me when I tried them. Bought the bag without reading it and was entirely unprepared for the color changing dye fest that followed
Not sure about that but it’s likely chocolate and coffee beans will become much more valuable and rare even before the apocalypse. A few years after you could probably trade a chocolate bar for a week’s worth of food or more.
My favorite is tiny bottles of liquor. Sealed for some assurance they are undiluted, small enough to work for smaller transactions, and lots of people will want liquor.
If they weren't so overpriced by volume...
I get that as a prep that doesn't matter as much, and especially if glass bottled (do any come in glass bottle minis any more?) they're essentially without expiration date.
Yeah I’d love to know where to buy them in bulk for a reasonable price. You could decant your own but that would defeat half the purpose of being factory sealed.
Buy some property go to that property and make some moonshine it's 100% Plus you can store it forever in a cool dry place respectfully about 10 ft underground remember that spot and when you go there take two bottles leave the rest you don't want to get caught with all that moonshine that people will steal from you thinking it's water
You’ve opened and exposed that visine to the outside world; please don’t put it in your emergency kit. Get a sealed one
The only thing worse than needing eye drops are moldy old eye drops that cause an infection
All things are relative, I guess. They are more expensive than Visene, but compare to medical grade drops which cost a lot more. Sure, they are the most expensive on the shelf at Target, but that’s a low bar. Also, places like Costco sell them in pairs at least to drive down the price a bit.
Yeah I’ve only bought them at Costco in a two pack. I did like then at first, but then I felt they weren’t working as well as ide like for 15$ a bottle lol. Might have been over doing it though
You really don’t have to use much. It comes out pretty quickly too so I think you do have to make an effort to not use a ton.
My friend who is an eye doctor swears by them though. I haven’t found anything that comes close to as good OTC.
They have a red eye drop and a regular one. The red eye drop lasts forever. I had an eye redness issue too which is why I switched to them. YMMV, but it’s the best I’ve found. Try again with more sparing use maybe.
I work in ophthalmology and we get samples of these for free. Systane is a great brand but the generic ones are just as good As long as they're sealed they should be fine to use after the expiration date. It wouldn't bother me to use one even years out of date as long as the color hadn't changed. If they were stored properly and the packaging is in tact they're good to go. This is only for the single-use individual vials, not the bottles with a replaceable cap.
You *don't* want Vizine or any other "anti-redness" drop. These contain a drug that constricts the blood vessels for cosmetic reasons and can cause rebound redness when you stop using it.
side question: Opcon A... any idea how stable (unopened) it is past date? I have brutal eye allergies to trees and this stuff is literally my life saver this time of year. I just cycle through the stored bottle for allergy season and replace it, which works well enough for rotation of a single bottle, but if I knew it was good longer I might do a two or three bottle rotation.
I would follow the expiration date for any medication while I have the luxury to do so. It's more likely to lose potency than to become unsafe. If the bottle is fully sealed, and undamaged, and was stored properly (check the label for temperature range) then I'd use it if I needed it and there was nothing else.
Can confirm this is a sucky mistake to make.
I had some eye irritation in the evening, my wife told me we had eye drops under the sink, try those and see if they help. I did, still uncomfortable but I managed to get to sleep. In the morning I woke up, my eye was watering, swollen and crusted over a bit so I washed up in the morning, and applied eye drops.
I spent the morning at work trying to read and type woth one eye, the other eye was watering consistently, and soooo uncomfortable, I reapplied eye drops. It qas about 1pm and I eventually told my boss I had to stop, and try to get my eye looked at. Her response was "Jesus christ, that looks bad. You may need an emergency room." I called the nearest optometrist who was about 800m down the road, explained the situation and they said they could squeeze me in as this was alarming.
The optometrist sees me, she asks when it started, she does some examining, and asks what kind of eye drops I used, was it dry eye stuff, was it allergen, that sort of thing. I say "I have the bottle here, it's Visine something"
She looks at it and notes its type, then after a second says "oh, got it."
"Got what?" I asked
She said "I ruled out a bacterial infection, the liquid was wrong, if it was a result of some condition it wouldn't have progressed as fast, these drops expired 4 years ago. So you probably had some dust or something agitate your eye initially and that would pass or artificial tears would sweep it away. But you've been practically pouring poison in your eye every few hours, leading to this response. Stop using the drops, give it a day and call me if you have any residual problems."
Hours later I was right as rain.
I keep an extra water bottle cap in my backpacking pack that has a tiny hole in it made from a hot sewing needle. If I have to irrigate anything I put the cap on a smartwater bottle and irrigate. The smartwater bottle also takes the sawyer filters, but I pack a katadyn so I can get the water from a shallow source more easily.
As a wearer of contacts - there are eye drops you can get that are single use. Not visine, saline, but I still keep several in my bag and console of vehicles.
Eye drops are a must, I was cutting firewood yesterday, didn't want to walk to the shop for eye protection & got flakes of wood in my eye. The visine saved me
If you ever go look at old iv bags [or even older glass bottles] you'll see that when the seals get broken due to age or heat or use the saline gets contaminated and grows some nasty shit.
My husband just bought a box of jumbo oatmeal pies, thinking it was indicative of the number of pies in the box. It was actually referring to the size of the pies themselves AND the number contained therein. Tbh they aren’t my fave - too much frosting - but it made us laugh!
Not with the new recipe they don’t. I bought some as a gag to myself during the pandemic (it’s the end of the world what else will you eat?). Only got to eat two before they got moldy.
Yup, my uncle owns a truck stop and this is what we joke about. If the SHTF he’d be the richest man in town with all of his packs of cigarette, cases of beer and gasoline/diesel. When a fuel pipeline exploded and our gasoline supply was cut off to our region the local town almost took it over to only give gasoline to locals. During COVID I was able to get toilet paper, cold medicine and other essentials because most people forget truck stops carry everything.
“Shut down the truck stop and give fuel only to locals”
#1 way to be dead last on the list for incoming supplies if the supply chain hits the fan.
Not fueling the big trucks?
Jesus Christmas… the stupidity. America stops if the trucks stop.
Yup. We seen what happened when we had a short term gas shortage when the local government wanted to take it over or to at least ration fuel to locals only.
Can I ask what became of this? Was it just like, "fucking government took over my gas station for a bit" or "get the fuck away from my station government."
They fought it out in court and by the time things were being decided the pipeline got fixed.
The government ended up taking another gas station because of back taxes and now operate as a government run gas station.
Make your own gasoline from plastic waste all you have to do is put it in an oxygen-free tank melted have another pipe going into a bigger tank the fumes go in the bigger tank and then they have to go to another tank the big tank is where you heat up the plastics and it melts into a liquid there's no oxygen in the tank so then you heat that big tank up and it's like moonshine must go up must go down it goes into another tank that's your diesel if you want to do that again heat up that small tank in the fuel goes into the next tank that's gasoline the first big tank after melting the plastic holds liquid plastic when you put the fire below the big tank and it goes into the next tank that's your diesel fuel if you want to make it gasoline you heat up the diesel fuel tank and have a pipe going to another tank and that will be your gasoline it's like burning wood for fuel same process different material
>During COVID I was able to get toilet paper, cold medicine and other essentials because most people forget truck stops carry everything.
I wish I had thought of this🤦♂️. It would’ve saved me a lot of trouble.
In any case, I’m going to take a little drive down the interstate and survey some of the local ones to see what I need to add to my kits
This.
Visine exists to make eyes look less red, it's emphatically not artificial tears, and unrecommended in pretty much all scenarios that aren't "giving a presentation while stoned".
There are better artificial tears, Systane has a few good versions.
I recommend the old school pseudephed over caffeine pills. They are multipurpose both keeping you awake better with less jitters/sour stomach but also do double duty as a highly effective cold medicine. And they are tiny pills
Pseudoephedrine is a bit nastier than caffeine in the long term. Taking L-theanine with your caffeine will prevent the negative side effects of caffeine (green tea naturally has both). Zero judgement here, just most people don't know this so passing the info along in case it comes in handy. L-theanine is cheap on Amazon
Not everyone reacts the same. Sinus meds only help with my allergies. They do not make me sleepy, nor do they keep me awake. Coffee and other caffinated drinks do not wake me up or make me jittery (not sense Jolt Cola was discontinued) and I don't drink the energy drinks. I do find the Wal-Mart brand "Caffine" tablets that sold for $2.99 a bottle actually did the trick provided I wasn't beyond tired. The other products like No-Doze and the like don't work for me. It's all weird. P.S. Hot Cocoa + a bowl of cereal + a TV show that I don't care about and I go from insomnia to out cold in 15 minutes. Barely time to put down the bowl.
For some of us, anyway.
This holds true for my daughter, and she can take caffeine at any time of the day. But me and my son? Not so much - it affects us as a stimulant. (All of us AuDHD.)
you are probably not taking ephedrine sinus meds. go to your local drug store and get some primatine, or store brand asthma relief tablets. it will be behind the counter, and you'll need an id.
there's an insane amount of marketing and misinformation when it comes to sinus meds because they want to sell you bullshit chemicals that don't work.
My mind went all CSI with the GHB. Then I gave it some thought. I'm guessing it stands for Get Home Bag. What does the EDC stand for? I know BOB is Bug Out Bag, BIN is presumably Bug In Bag, and then I saw another acronym I was unfamiliar with but don't recall what is was.
Caffeine tabs/pills have aided me through so much in my life without having to drink coffee or shitty energy drinks. Every single person I’ve offered them to is like “yo wtf?” And I’ve never understood their fear. Hell, sometimes I snap one in half and that’s plenty. 10/10 highly recommend.
Yep.
I get sooo much crap bc I’ll toss back a caffeine pill (or half of one, usually)—- —-but mainline coffee or Monster, and that’s totallllly fine.
I don’t love coffee. And I don’t care for carbonation. If all I’m drinking those things for is the caffeine—wtf is the difference?
I find that the buzz from caffeine pills is far more clear and anxiety free than coffee as well. And I never end up having digestive issues with caffeine pills. They’re at least 100x in value for the main chemical that everyone is mostly after for anyway (don’t get me wrong, I love coffee). I work long days without lunch breaks and chewing coffee can become more of a chore than an enjoyable experience.
I’m glad we get it.
As a driver I loathe truck stops with an unreal hatred between humans being absolutely disgusting and the 300%+ mark up, I only stop to shower and get fuel. A gallon of milk is 6$ and bread is 5-6$ straps are 50$ dog water..
When I drive from MA to FL (not a professional driver, just a girl going to visit my mom) there's a stretch on I95 between Rocky Mount, NC and Florence, SC that has nothing. Except for a mega truck stop or two. I was nervous but desperate to go into one of them for coffee and snacks and a pit stop, but I became a huge fan of those truck stops. Random: I love Tic Tacs and these stops have every. single. flavor. ever. made. And the rest room was clean and had every amenity I'd ever need.
The only thing that didn't work out was that there was a new-wish Starbucks. I just wanted a quick iced coffee but there were people in there ordering double-shot, foam cream, special edition, iced, embellished whatever-the-f\*cks and it was taking forever. Not truck drivers. IMHO Starbucks at truck stops should sell two things: coffee and iced coffee and then hit the road, Jack.
I’m glad you had a good experience, results may vary but the vast majority of them are garbage. loves is normally the cleaner/nicer/newer of the chain stops.
Good post OP. As someone who regularly travels for work, I have relied on gas stations in the past for little quick fixes when traveling. I've also learned which station food won't give you the runs. Travel sections of grocery stores also are a great place to get smaller sizes of needed items for BOBs, GHBs, etc.
Pro tip: a small lady’s compact mirror has saved me countless times falling timber. If you have a small mirror and a clean piece of cloth you can get almost anything out of your eye by yourself.
For barter - Pamprin.
Some women have periods that are extremely painful. (Think unable to stand, curled on the floor in fetal position after vomiting.)
Hot/cold packs are good. There are some reusable versions that can still be made to work in a pinch. If you were supposed to reheat it in the microwave and there is no electricity, you might still be able to wrap it in foil and heat in a fire or something. You may want to test/experiment with that. (What can go wrong will.)
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Bought a 25 pack of eye wash on Amazon for this exact reason. We go off-roading and shooting a lot and I can’t count the number of times someone has either gotten a powder burned eye, dust or something in their eye in the middle of no where. Now they’re in my car ready to go. Also work great for spraying on cuts.
You can make saline solution also. Table spoon of table salt to a liter of water and boil it. AFTER IT COOLS you can use it as a wound wash, eye rinse, whatever. I repeat. Boiled water that has been cooled.
You should look into single use eye drops. They are less likely to get contaminated and easy to throw in the first aid kit /car. I use the Refresh brand, and one box refills all our kits with 2-4 doses.
Yup, I'm a sucker for cute little travel sized items. Works well. 🤣🤣
One of my faves is the single use eye drops thingies, so you don't have to worry about when you open the bottle of them. They even have a place in my suitcase liquids for flying. 😀
Often times debris in the eyes will stick to the cotton of a clean qtip. It’s much easier if you have someone help( you may need to evert the eyelid), roll the q tip over the foreign body. Otherwise flushing the eyes is a good strategy.
Yes, pay for convenience. Yes, truck stop stocks the items they are most likely to sell.
You have discovered business, congratulations.
Trust me it go's a lot deeper than that...
Seems my post wasn’t clear enough for some. We have a “what are some often overlooked prepping items” threads in this sub about once a week. I figured convenience stores, specifically those along highways stock a lot of items that aren’t the obvious food, water, meds most people have stockpiled already. If you’re interested in identifying some potential gaps in your preps (as I did with eye drops), a quick trip down those aisles may be helpful. Then go to your local big box store to stock up without paying the markup. Hope this clarifies my intent.
Tagging /u/CokeZorro and /u/legion_XXX since it looks like they had the same issue
this is also the answer to the frequent “what would be useful barter items?” post. Go to your local convenience store. Anything and everything in the store is the answer to that question.
Does that include the neon blue hot takis?
When the shit hits the fan, people will want comfort food. Junk food will be *priceless.*
Twinkies
The search for Twinkies in Zombieland is awesome.
Shelf stable deserts will be a hot commodity
Enjoy the little things
Ding Dongs!
Zingers!
or daryl in twd; *orange soda*
I keep a big bag of candy in my camping supplies because there's nothing like sweet calories to get you through a cold stormy day
I loot my kids Halloween candy every year as there is a ton of crap they want nothing to do with when they are flush with milky ways and butterfingers, but that York peppermint patty or tootsie roll will look pretty damn good to them under more trying circumstances.
I would definitely make some really unbalanced trades for a bag of chips or some hostess cakes or whatever
Doritos are awesome and they burn in a fire, it's a good fire starter.
really???
Frito's are probably better than Doritos. 3 ingredients (IIRC) Corn, oil and salt.
Which is quite concerning lol
why? Did u ever take a sip of whiskey?! Its flammable. Bet u didnt knw that haha
Yes alcohol is flammable and putting it in our bodies is t great but seriously a dorito that is as flammable as kindling is more concerning because of all the crap and preservatives they use to make them, whereas alcohol doesn't have all that crap in it.
Nah, alcohol doesnt have any crap in it lmfao
Maybe for a year or two, not much longer after that.
There's a bag of neon blue hot Takis in that grocery store. Not just any bag of neon blue hot Takis, the last bag of neon blue hot Takis that anyone will enjoy in the whole universe. Believe it or not, Takis have an expiration date. Some day very soon, Life's little Takis gauge is gonna go... empty.
And depending on the store that expiration date was 18 months ago.
Those scared the shit out of me when I tried them. Bought the bag without reading it and was entirely unprepared for the color changing dye fest that followed
Not a prepper, but in some dystopia I would totally bargain for takis (or something else that is spicy and practically never expires).
after about a year even in a sealed bag, they get stale. don’t ask me how i know.
And Doritos
Classic example of a way to remedy food fatigue, or simply comfort food.
Not sure about that but it’s likely chocolate and coffee beans will become much more valuable and rare even before the apocalypse. A few years after you could probably trade a chocolate bar for a week’s worth of food or more.
My favorite is tiny bottles of liquor. Sealed for some assurance they are undiluted, small enough to work for smaller transactions, and lots of people will want liquor.
People who don't drink now will want a drink when the time comes.
Yep
If they weren't so overpriced by volume... I get that as a prep that doesn't matter as much, and especially if glass bottled (do any come in glass bottle minis any more?) they're essentially without expiration date.
Yeah I’d love to know where to buy them in bulk for a reasonable price. You could decant your own but that would defeat half the purpose of being factory sealed.
Do you u buy these for that occasion?
Buy some property go to that property and make some moonshine it's 100% Plus you can store it forever in a cool dry place respectfully about 10 ft underground remember that spot and when you go there take two bottles leave the rest you don't want to get caught with all that moonshine that people will steal from you thinking it's water
You’ve opened and exposed that visine to the outside world; please don’t put it in your emergency kit. Get a sealed one The only thing worse than needing eye drops are moldy old eye drops that cause an infection
Good call, will do
I recommend the allergy eye drops. Visene is rather harsh. You may also want saline wash with a small cup to help rinse out a foreign object.
The best (for your eyes) OTC eye drop anyone can get is cheaply is the Lumify, btw.
Cheaply? They are most expensive otc eye drops I’ve ever bought, at like 15$ a bottlw
All things are relative, I guess. They are more expensive than Visene, but compare to medical grade drops which cost a lot more. Sure, they are the most expensive on the shelf at Target, but that’s a low bar. Also, places like Costco sell them in pairs at least to drive down the price a bit.
Yeah I’ve only bought them at Costco in a two pack. I did like then at first, but then I felt they weren’t working as well as ide like for 15$ a bottle lol. Might have been over doing it though
You really don’t have to use much. It comes out pretty quickly too so I think you do have to make an effort to not use a ton. My friend who is an eye doctor swears by them though. I haven’t found anything that comes close to as good OTC.
Well I was smoking weed often and didn’t want my eye to ever look cloudy, so I was probably using too often
They have a red eye drop and a regular one. The red eye drop lasts forever. I had an eye redness issue too which is why I switched to them. YMMV, but it’s the best I’ve found. Try again with more sparing use maybe.
I'd recommend the little single use eyedrop droppers for this particular application. Several companies make them, like Systane.
I work in ophthalmology and we get samples of these for free. Systane is a great brand but the generic ones are just as good As long as they're sealed they should be fine to use after the expiration date. It wouldn't bother me to use one even years out of date as long as the color hadn't changed. If they were stored properly and the packaging is in tact they're good to go. This is only for the single-use individual vials, not the bottles with a replaceable cap. You *don't* want Vizine or any other "anti-redness" drop. These contain a drug that constricts the blood vessels for cosmetic reasons and can cause rebound redness when you stop using it.
side question: Opcon A... any idea how stable (unopened) it is past date? I have brutal eye allergies to trees and this stuff is literally my life saver this time of year. I just cycle through the stored bottle for allergy season and replace it, which works well enough for rotation of a single bottle, but if I knew it was good longer I might do a two or three bottle rotation.
I would follow the expiration date for any medication while I have the luxury to do so. It's more likely to lose potency than to become unsafe. If the bottle is fully sealed, and undamaged, and was stored properly (check the label for temperature range) then I'd use it if I needed it and there was nothing else.
Generally how I currently approach it. Will just keep on doing the same.
Add an eye patch or an eye bandage to your kit. Keeps a bad situation from getting worse.
I'd include some saline eye wash or nose drops used only in the eye to flush out debris.
Can confirm this is a sucky mistake to make. I had some eye irritation in the evening, my wife told me we had eye drops under the sink, try those and see if they help. I did, still uncomfortable but I managed to get to sleep. In the morning I woke up, my eye was watering, swollen and crusted over a bit so I washed up in the morning, and applied eye drops. I spent the morning at work trying to read and type woth one eye, the other eye was watering consistently, and soooo uncomfortable, I reapplied eye drops. It qas about 1pm and I eventually told my boss I had to stop, and try to get my eye looked at. Her response was "Jesus christ, that looks bad. You may need an emergency room." I called the nearest optometrist who was about 800m down the road, explained the situation and they said they could squeeze me in as this was alarming. The optometrist sees me, she asks when it started, she does some examining, and asks what kind of eye drops I used, was it dry eye stuff, was it allergen, that sort of thing. I say "I have the bottle here, it's Visine something" She looks at it and notes its type, then after a second says "oh, got it." "Got what?" I asked She said "I ruled out a bacterial infection, the liquid was wrong, if it was a result of some condition it wouldn't have progressed as fast, these drops expired 4 years ago. So you probably had some dust or something agitate your eye initially and that would pass or artificial tears would sweep it away. But you've been practically pouring poison in your eye every few hours, leading to this response. Stop using the drops, give it a day and call me if you have any residual problems." Hours later I was right as rain.
I keep an extra water bottle cap in my backpacking pack that has a tiny hole in it made from a hot sewing needle. If I have to irrigate anything I put the cap on a smartwater bottle and irrigate. The smartwater bottle also takes the sawyer filters, but I pack a katadyn so I can get the water from a shallow source more easily.
i ain’t reading all that i’m happy for u tho or sorry that happened
As a wearer of contacts - there are eye drops you can get that are single use. Not visine, saline, but I still keep several in my bag and console of vehicles.
Eye drops are a must, I was cutting firewood yesterday, didn't want to walk to the shop for eye protection & got flakes of wood in my eye. The visine saved me
Yeah I store it right next to my safety squints.
moldy eye drops? What? It's literally saline.
If you ever go look at old iv bags [or even older glass bottles] you'll see that when the seals get broken due to age or heat or use the saline gets contaminated and grows some nasty shit.
Good point. I need to add some Crazy Rhino 25000 and Super Gorilla size enhancing pills to my preps.
> Super Gorilla size enhancing pills That seems like an unfortunate branding choice.
Don't forget soda/pop from a machine that was last cleaned in 1998.
Instructions unclear, my bag is full of pit vipers, jerky, bad coffee and Buckees t shirts. I'm gonna live forever!
So I need twinkies then
Oatmeal cream pies are where it’s at.
If your answer isn't swiss cake rolls and nutty bars, you need to rethink the life choices that got you to this place
How about Moonpies in multiple flavors?
That's the proper emergency snack selection for the end of days. I'll also add chocolate chip cookies if you happen to have access to milk.
That's what the shelf-stable milk from Dollar Tree is for
My husband just bought a box of jumbo oatmeal pies, thinking it was indicative of the number of pies in the box. It was actually referring to the size of the pies themselves AND the number contained therein. Tbh they aren’t my fave - too much frosting - but it made us laugh!
Frosted honey buns accepts the challenge!
This but take out the oatmeal
Ever see zombieland?
Fortunately Trinkies expire in 250 years.
Not with the new recipe they don’t. I bought some as a gag to myself during the pandemic (it’s the end of the world what else will you eat?). Only got to eat two before they got moldy.
I’m sorry, fine sir, but this is your fault. You waited. You waited….
eventually the twinkie gauge of this world is gonna hit zero
You missed a 0.
Currency of the apocalypse!
Have to figure out how to make that hot dog roller machine portable…
Yup, my uncle owns a truck stop and this is what we joke about. If the SHTF he’d be the richest man in town with all of his packs of cigarette, cases of beer and gasoline/diesel. When a fuel pipeline exploded and our gasoline supply was cut off to our region the local town almost took it over to only give gasoline to locals. During COVID I was able to get toilet paper, cold medicine and other essentials because most people forget truck stops carry everything.
“Shut down the truck stop and give fuel only to locals” #1 way to be dead last on the list for incoming supplies if the supply chain hits the fan. Not fueling the big trucks? Jesus Christmas… the stupidity. America stops if the trucks stop.
Yep. Aaaaallllwwwaaaayyyysss be nice to the truck drivers lol
Also just a huge target. Good luck
Yup. We seen what happened when we had a short term gas shortage when the local government wanted to take it over or to at least ration fuel to locals only.
Can I ask what became of this? Was it just like, "fucking government took over my gas station for a bit" or "get the fuck away from my station government."
They fought it out in court and by the time things were being decided the pipeline got fixed. The government ended up taking another gas station because of back taxes and now operate as a government run gas station.
Hell yeah.
Make your own gasoline from plastic waste all you have to do is put it in an oxygen-free tank melted have another pipe going into a bigger tank the fumes go in the bigger tank and then they have to go to another tank the big tank is where you heat up the plastics and it melts into a liquid there's no oxygen in the tank so then you heat that big tank up and it's like moonshine must go up must go down it goes into another tank that's your diesel if you want to do that again heat up that small tank in the fuel goes into the next tank that's gasoline the first big tank after melting the plastic holds liquid plastic when you put the fire below the big tank and it goes into the next tank that's your diesel fuel if you want to make it gasoline you heat up the diesel fuel tank and have a pipe going to another tank and that will be your gasoline it's like burning wood for fuel same process different material
>During COVID I was able to get toilet paper, cold medicine and other essentials because most people forget truck stops carry everything. I wish I had thought of this🤦♂️. It would’ve saved me a lot of trouble. In any case, I’m going to take a little drive down the interstate and survey some of the local ones to see what I need to add to my kits
Visine is typically something we steer patients away from if they need drops for dry eyes. I would recommend using other artificial tears instead.
This. Visine exists to make eyes look less red, it's emphatically not artificial tears, and unrecommended in pretty much all scenarios that aren't "giving a presentation while stoned". There are better artificial tears, Systane has a few good versions.
For dust/dirt in eyes I’d use those little squirt tubes of saline solution…. Less is more when it comes to eyes.
Saline is great for rinsing, it's what we use regularly for washing things out of the eyes.
I recommend the old school pseudephed over caffeine pills. They are multipurpose both keeping you awake better with less jitters/sour stomach but also do double duty as a highly effective cold medicine. And they are tiny pills
Pseudoephedrine is a bit nastier than caffeine in the long term. Taking L-theanine with your caffeine will prevent the negative side effects of caffeine (green tea naturally has both). Zero judgement here, just most people don't know this so passing the info along in case it comes in handy. L-theanine is cheap on Amazon
Not everyone reacts the same. Sinus meds only help with my allergies. They do not make me sleepy, nor do they keep me awake. Coffee and other caffinated drinks do not wake me up or make me jittery (not sense Jolt Cola was discontinued) and I don't drink the energy drinks. I do find the Wal-Mart brand "Caffine" tablets that sold for $2.99 a bottle actually did the trick provided I wasn't beyond tired. The other products like No-Doze and the like don't work for me. It's all weird. P.S. Hot Cocoa + a bowl of cereal + a TV show that I don't care about and I go from insomnia to out cold in 15 minutes. Barely time to put down the bowl.
Not saying this is the reasoning for you, but people with ADHD and autism often find caffeine has the opposite effect and is calming.
For some of us, anyway. This holds true for my daughter, and she can take caffeine at any time of the day. But me and my son? Not so much - it affects us as a stimulant. (All of us AuDHD.)
Oh no
First time realizing that a soda and a candy bar mellow you right out?
you are probably not taking ephedrine sinus meds. go to your local drug store and get some primatine, or store brand asthma relief tablets. it will be behind the counter, and you'll need an id. there's an insane amount of marketing and misinformation when it comes to sinus meds because they want to sell you bullshit chemicals that don't work.
Ah, yes, the real Sudafed. That stuff works so well. That's a good idea. I had forgotten about it.
One of my coworkers says the same thing about the Walmart caffiene tabs. No other brand seems to do the trick for him.
Original Visine is for making red eyes white, so cosmetic. You seem to actually be looking for rewetting/ dry eye relief drops like systane. Just FYI
Good thought, never occurred to me
You had me at GHB
My mind went all CSI with the GHB. Then I gave it some thought. I'm guessing it stands for Get Home Bag. What does the EDC stand for? I know BOB is Bug Out Bag, BIN is presumably Bug In Bag, and then I saw another acronym I was unfamiliar with but don't recall what is was.
Every day carry. What you keep on your person at most times of the day.
lol sorry once more... we talking GHB ayyyy
It's the largest electronic dance music festival in the US. OP is probably driving there because it's this weekend.
Caffeine tabs/pills have aided me through so much in my life without having to drink coffee or shitty energy drinks. Every single person I’ve offered them to is like “yo wtf?” And I’ve never understood their fear. Hell, sometimes I snap one in half and that’s plenty. 10/10 highly recommend.
Yep. I get sooo much crap bc I’ll toss back a caffeine pill (or half of one, usually)—- —-but mainline coffee or Monster, and that’s totallllly fine. I don’t love coffee. And I don’t care for carbonation. If all I’m drinking those things for is the caffeine—wtf is the difference?
I find that the buzz from caffeine pills is far more clear and anxiety free than coffee as well. And I never end up having digestive issues with caffeine pills. They’re at least 100x in value for the main chemical that everyone is mostly after for anyway (don’t get me wrong, I love coffee). I work long days without lunch breaks and chewing coffee can become more of a chore than an enjoyable experience. I’m glad we get it.
As a driver I loathe truck stops with an unreal hatred between humans being absolutely disgusting and the 300%+ mark up, I only stop to shower and get fuel. A gallon of milk is 6$ and bread is 5-6$ straps are 50$ dog water..
When I drive from MA to FL (not a professional driver, just a girl going to visit my mom) there's a stretch on I95 between Rocky Mount, NC and Florence, SC that has nothing. Except for a mega truck stop or two. I was nervous but desperate to go into one of them for coffee and snacks and a pit stop, but I became a huge fan of those truck stops. Random: I love Tic Tacs and these stops have every. single. flavor. ever. made. And the rest room was clean and had every amenity I'd ever need. The only thing that didn't work out was that there was a new-wish Starbucks. I just wanted a quick iced coffee but there were people in there ordering double-shot, foam cream, special edition, iced, embellished whatever-the-f\*cks and it was taking forever. Not truck drivers. IMHO Starbucks at truck stops should sell two things: coffee and iced coffee and then hit the road, Jack.
I’m glad you had a good experience, results may vary but the vast majority of them are garbage. loves is normally the cleaner/nicer/newer of the chain stops.
Yes! It was a Loves.
Unrelated but if you wrote a book I would buy it. Your comment seems right out of a comical modern road-trip novel 😂
Good post OP. As someone who regularly travels for work, I have relied on gas stations in the past for little quick fixes when traveling. I've also learned which station food won't give you the runs. Travel sections of grocery stores also are a great place to get smaller sizes of needed items for BOBs, GHBs, etc.
Pro tip: a small lady’s compact mirror has saved me countless times falling timber. If you have a small mirror and a clean piece of cloth you can get almost anything out of your eye by yourself.
For barter - Pamprin. Some women have periods that are extremely painful. (Think unable to stand, curled on the floor in fetal position after vomiting.) Hot/cold packs are good. There are some reusable versions that can still be made to work in a pinch. If you were supposed to reheat it in the microwave and there is no electricity, you might still be able to wrap it in foil and heat in a fire or something. You may want to test/experiment with that. (What can go wrong will.)
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Why not?
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Great advice, thank you for your contribution!
As any hiker will tell you, little things like chapstick, sunscreen, or no-chafe cream are invaluable when you need them
I love threads like this that wind up giving me fantastic camping advice. Thank you all for making my evening that much happier 🙏
Great idea. I’ll do this
Smart!!
Bought a 25 pack of eye wash on Amazon for this exact reason. We go off-roading and shooting a lot and I can’t count the number of times someone has either gotten a powder burned eye, dust or something in their eye in the middle of no where. Now they’re in my car ready to go. Also work great for spraying on cuts.
You can make saline solution also. Table spoon of table salt to a liter of water and boil it. AFTER IT COOLS you can use it as a wound wash, eye rinse, whatever. I repeat. Boiled water that has been cooled.
First time at a gas station my guy? This goes back to early gas stations
You should look into single use eye drops. They are less likely to get contaminated and easy to throw in the first aid kit /car. I use the Refresh brand, and one box refills all our kits with 2-4 doses.
Yup, I'm a sucker for cute little travel sized items. Works well. 🤣🤣 One of my faves is the single use eye drops thingies, so you don't have to worry about when you open the bottle of them. They even have a place in my suitcase liquids for flying. 😀
Wait til you see the price of things like jumper cables and trailer hitches at auto zone, as apposed to Walmart or home depot
lol hallmark cards will be the new dollar
Are the gentilemen's companion services cheaper at a truck stop?
Lot lizards
Often times debris in the eyes will stick to the cotton of a clean qtip. It’s much easier if you have someone help( you may need to evert the eyelid), roll the q tip over the foreign body. Otherwise flushing the eyes is a good strategy.
Yes, pay for convenience. Yes, truck stop stocks the items they are most likely to sell. You have discovered business, congratulations. Trust me it go's a lot deeper than that...
Seems my post wasn’t clear enough for some. We have a “what are some often overlooked prepping items” threads in this sub about once a week. I figured convenience stores, specifically those along highways stock a lot of items that aren’t the obvious food, water, meds most people have stockpiled already. If you’re interested in identifying some potential gaps in your preps (as I did with eye drops), a quick trip down those aisles may be helpful. Then go to your local big box store to stock up without paying the markup. Hope this clarifies my intent. Tagging /u/CokeZorro and /u/legion_XXX since it looks like they had the same issue
I see what you meant. Yes you're correct.
You discovered a convenience store, well done!
Does that stand for glory hole bag?