In my previous post, I discussed at length – okay, ranted is more like it – why MREs are too expensive and too unreliable for survival food preps.
And, of course, the fact that many of the menu options taste like Satan’s jockstrap.
The following is an excerpt from my novel, BIG SKY FALLING (currently in the hands of my awesome literary agent), describing what a joy MREs are to eat for a prolonged period.
“Bonus! Jalapeño cheese spread!” the younger member said as he dumped the contents on the forest floor. “Best part of any MRE. You won’t crap for three weeks, but it’s worth it.”
“Speaking of gut-wrenching constipation, I’ll trade you for my First Strike chocolate energy bar,” his buddy, a thirty-something black man, said. The young man squirted the contents of the cheese pouch into his mouth with one hand and gave his friend the finger with the other.
“Blue falcon,” the man retorted.
“Never heard of that species,” Allan said as he ripped his MRE pouch open. “They endangered?”
The young black man laughed. “No. They’re everywhere. You’ll know one when you see one. Trust me.”
Raider opened the pouch containing the “rib-shaped, barbecue pork patty” that was his main course and impaled it on his Marine Ka-Bar knife. “Sometimes, I wonder if Uncle Sam used us as guinea pigs to see what hungry soldiers would be desperate enough to eat,” he joked as he studied the red gelatinous blob. “Some mad scientist in front of a Tesla coil came up with this.”
“I wanna know who invented the drink mix that won’t mix,” the black soldier said before ripping open the corner of the packet and pouring it into his mouth, turning his teeth and lips a neon, fruit-punch red. “It’s impossible to get the proportions right—you end up with colored water and fruity quicksand bullshit. Best to just eat it straight.”
Raider tore off a hunk of his lunch with his teeth. “Way back when I was a private at Two-Nine, MRE spoons were made of brown plastic. We used to joke that they made them that way to blend in with the shit we were eating.”
Just remember, my fellow preppers … you can’t spell “nightmare” without MRE. Spend your hard-earned money on storage food you and your family will actually eat.
For you civvies out there, “Two-Nine” is Marine slang for the huge military air-ground training area at Twentynine Palms, California. “Blue Falcon,” on the other hand, is a G-rated term for the dreaded Buddy F*cker who lives to screw over his fellow soldiers the moment the opportunity presents itself.