Canned tuna and powdered milk have been dubbed “the new duct tape” now that Mike Levitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, has advised Americans to "start stockpiling several weeks' worth of food":http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/AvianFlu/story?id=1722484&page=1 in anticipation of a possible bird flu outbreak. A pandemic could conceivably disrupt our daily lives drastically for weeks on end, if previous pandemics are anything to judge by. “When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna fish, buy a fourth and put it under the bed,” Leavitt said at a conference in Wyoming this past weekend. “When you go to the store to buy some milk, pick up a box of powdered milk, put it under the bed.” Al Franken speculated on his radio show this afternoon that the emphasis on canned tuna and powdered milk “can only mean one thing: the government is planning to fight the bird flu with cats.”

The Red Cross says we should be prepared, in the event of a pandemic, to be stuck in our homes for as long as 10 days, during which time we may have to do without power and running water. Health officials are talking about a possible quarantine, only now they call it “social distancing.” GetOutofMyFaceBook, anyone? Darlene Washington, director of disease prevention education at the American Red Cross, cited a long list of must-haves to keep on hand on ABC's “Good Morning America,” including gallons of water, non-perishable foods that don't need to be heated, such as peanut butter, protein bars, crackers, and canned fish, flashlights, batteries, matches, paper towels, garbage bags, toilet paper, soap, and so on. This may be fine for those of you in the suburbs blessed with basements and garages, but what are we city dwellers with limited space supposed to do? Mike Leavitt seems to think we have unlimited space under our beds, but I have two problems with this. First, “keeping things stored under your bed is a sure recipe for hidden obstacles in your relationship life,” according to David Daniel Kennedy's "Feng Shui Tips for a Better Life":http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580170382/qid=1142362841/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-7322578-7898439?s=books&v=glance&n=283155. “If this space is blocked, you can be blocked in relationship and other areas of your life on unseen levels.” Second, despite knowing that it's bad feng shui, we've already filled the space under our bed with so much stuff there's no room for canned tuna or powdered milk. The claw-footed cast iron bath tub we salvaged when the apartment across the hall was renovated takes up about half the space, already, and then there are all the cans of paint, power tools, bolts of fabric and miscellaneous computer components that we can't bear to part with. Matt likes to buy weird European canned goods, like cassoulet and haggis, as a gesture towards disaster preparedness. They sit on a shelf high up in our pantry and I hope we never have to eat them, unheated or otherwise.