Brownie Survivial Skills

As I write this, Hurricane Earl is bearing down on Nova Scotia with a rather disconcertingly direct bead on our suddenly fragile-looking maritime province. Tropical Storm Fiona isn’t far behind.

On the plus side, though, the threat of a major storm has allowed me to fully indulge my inner Brownie/Girl Guide. “Be prepared,” we, of the teensy brown uniforms, were taught. “Take action for a better world,” we were made to promise. That may seem like a lot of responsibility to heap on the shoulders of an eight-year-old (can you say “anxiety attack”?) but most of us seemed okay with it.

I probably don’t need to tell you that I was a very successful Brownie. I was “Sixer” of the Pixies – a responsibility I took rather seriously – and even today, you probably shouldn’t mess with me, or I WILL make you re-tie that reef knot in your neckerchief. However, I have to confess that was only an actual Girl Guide for, like, one day. The Brownies “flew me up” because I was about to move to another province, and I never actually joined the Guides in my new home town.

Still, the Brownies taught me everything I needed to know about how to braid hair (read: how to fashion an escape rope out of torn-up bedsheets), how to make a cake (read: how to forage for emergency rations), and, if I recall correctly, how to pick up trash (read: post-disaster cleanup). And now, many decades later, thanks to global warming and my penchant for living near the ocean, I may get to, once again, put all of those skills to good use!

So, the Brownie in me is finding it rather entertaining to peruse my cupboards and ponder mysteries like, “If I ate cold cream of chicken soup right out of the can, would that kill me?”

“If my frozen microwavable dinners all thawed out, could I conceivably cook them with the help of some cleverly-folded tinfoil and a skilfully-wielded brûlée torch?”

And, “Isn’t a tub of melted ice cream really just chocolate soup?”

Resourcefulness is the key thing we ex-Brownies have going for us, and it serves us well in situations like imminent hurricanes, erupting volcanoes, and surprise visits from the in-laws. I seem to recall once whipping up a delightful appetizer out of week-old nacho chips, leftover martini olives, tinned chickpeas and squeeze-cheese. Necessity breeds invention.

But of course, the ideal scenario is that I never actually get to put my snake-bite, lightning-strike, flash-flood, or ripped-off-roof skills to the test. So, I’ve got my fingers crossed that, as you’re reading this, I haven’t spent the past week grating coffee beans on an orange zester and heating water over some burning sticks in the back yard to get my morning caffeine fix.

Not that I wouldn’t enjoy that. And just in case, I’m off to sharpen up that zester.