Obtaining Fuel
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes. — Douglas Adams
Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. — Alexis de Tocqueville
Imagine that you are sitting beside a trail. You’ve been hiking hard all day, and you’ve just stopped walking. You’re tired and hungry. You are about to cook supper. You have food and water — everything you need. Your stove is set up, the pot is full of water, the food is waiting to be cooked. You bend over. You light a match. You open the stove’s valve. You realize that the fuel canister is empty. What do you do now?
Well, you make a small wood fire to cook over. You get by, but it’s inconvenient. Tomorrow you’ll hit the next small town on your thousand-mile trip. You will rent a motel room, rest and resupply.
Tomorrow comes. You get into town, clean up and go out to eat. It’s a fine bright sunny morning. Life is good. You start looking for things you need, like a fuel canister for your stove. The town has two gas stations, a grocery store, a hardware store and a bar. No outdoor shops. No canisters at any price. You’re out of luck.
OK, rewind. You don’t have a canister stove. Let’s say you’re carrying a white gas stove. Same scenario. You make it into town and go out resupplying. You’re in luck this time. The hardware store happens to stock white gas, and it has one can. The can holds a gallon. You’re all set. Except that you need a pint of fuel, not a gallon. Too bad.
Rewind again. This time you’re carrying an Esbit stove. Same scenario. You ask around town about Esbit fuel tablets. You have to explain to people what you mean. Someone calls the sheriff.
Rewind. You’re burning alcohol. In town you find gas line deicer at both gas stations, and denatured alcohol at both the grocery and hardware store, in quart cans. More than you need, but you can carry a little extra. Problem solved.
Other options. You can have someone mail fuel canisters or Esbit fuel, addressed to you at general delivery. You have to be in the right town at the right time (though general delivery mail can be held for you for up to 30 days). You also have to pay for postage, and you need someone back home who is dependable enough to send it out to you. If your pal spaces out, you’re screwed.
White gas is still an iffy proposition because you can’t mail it, and not every store in every town sells it.
Rewind one more time. This time you’re carrying a wood burning stove. You have no problems other than finding dry fuel. In a pinch you can burn grass or bark or even less savory things. You’ll find something to burn no matter where you are. If you like, you can carry a few charcoal briquettes as an emergency backup — bulky, frangible and sooty but pretty cheap and guaranteed dry. Or just cache a small bundle of sticks in a plastic bag at the bottom of your pack against the next rainy day.
Like most things, the less extreme your needs, the less it matters which choices you make. If you go out backpacking twice a summer for three days each time, you can survive just about anything short of a fall off a cliff or being eaten by a hitherto unknown and unspeakably horrible and ravenous monster beast in the dead of night. Stove type is just about irrelevant. If you’re out for several months, thousands of miles from home, then you have to think a lot harder about what you’re going to be doing out there when conditions aren’t perfect. And they won’t be.
Somewhere, somewhen, you will have problems, possibly with the monsters. Maybe they didn’t make a move last time, or the time before that, but there is one thing to keep in mind about monsters: they are very, very patient. They choose their targets with excruciating care and they can wait. They can wait a long, long time. They know what they like, and what they like may be you.
In fact, if you have never felt uneasy in the woods, have never heard a strange noise or awakened in the night, your heart racing, lying so still, in absolute terror and full of certainty that there is SOMETHING wild and pathologically dangerous drooling through its fangs mere inches from where you lie, then it is because they are already after you, and have taken especial care to stalk you with the utmost of deliberate stealth and silent precision, to keep you unaware until the very last instant before the irresistible jaws snap shut over your whole head, so look out, look out my friend, because your time is near.
Exercises
- Take it easy. Skip this section. Sleep in or catch a movie on TV instead. Assume that things will work out. You’ve always squeaked by before, right? Whatever.
- Go to www.usps.com and try to find information on either flammable or hazardous materials. Best wishes and good luck with that. Searching for the word “flammable” will likely get you zero hits. A search for the phrase “hazardous substances” at one time resulted in two hits: “Mailpiece leaking an unknown powdery substance” and “Glossary of Postal Terms G-L”. The first hit from a search on “hazardous materials” got “USPS News Link Online”. As of December 9, 2006, the top story on this page was from April 25, 2003, “New deal! USPS employees can now ring up savings with Nextel wireless.”
Yay.
The third hit from a search on “hazardous”: “Common hazardous materials in the mail”. This went to “DMM TOC > 600 Basic Standards for All Mailing Services”, where section 10 began to explain all this.
If there is a link to “Aviation Security” under “All Products and Services” it might tell you that flea collars, nail polish, airbags, batteries and dry ice are hazardous, not to mention glues.
Search on the phrase “Santa Claus”? Five apposite hits:
- Writing a letter to Santa Claus
- PARENTS sending Santa Claus letters
- Using / Reusing boxes
- Personalized Holiday & Gift cards available online
- 1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777) Holiday Hours
Try to figure this out. Don’t contact me to complain. My misery doesn’t want to love your company. Instead try banging your head against any nearby wall that you find handy. Repeat as often as necessary until you feel better.
- Did you see something? Out there, a few feet off, behind, over your shoulder? Probably nothing. Probably nothing. Shouldn’t worry too much. Heh.