You're not wrong at all. I joke with my friends that I'm "buying stocks for the future: canned goods and ammunition". I'm by no means an "End Of The World Prepper", but your series of questions are exactly the kinds of questions I like to be able to answer in a doesn't-sound-too-crazy-way:

> Do you have yeast and other ingredients already?

Yup.

> Is your water service and electricity / gas still working?

We've got two camping jugs full of water that we keep full (20 gal each?) and change the water out of at least every 6 months. In the summer they're drinking water for the cabin, in the winter they're for emergencies.

I've got a 3kW generator that I use for field work, and a 30L jug of fresh gas. It gets used in the field all summer and tucked away in the winter.

> Do you have experience baking bread?

It's fun!

> Or access to a recipe book?

Stored locally on my computer, and the favourite recipes are written on recipe cards because I'm scared to get water in my laptop or iPad in the kitchen :)

> or is your Internet service provider still operating?

That's probably the trickiest of all of them. If both the cell network and the coax network go down here, we've lost communication other than the short-range 2m ham kit (also a hobby)

> You might be eating cold gruel with water from the creek, if you even know that's a thing.

For the first while, at least it's going to be hot gruel. My portable hiking stove and pot are nearby along with the sleeping bags and tent. Because I like camping :). I am going to go look up a gruel recipe here though!

> But wait! There's more! All the supply chains near you have just collapsed. Everyone's going hungry once they've gone through their 2 (or 0) bags of flour. Is your house about to be looted? Can you secure it?

Secure it permanently? No, probably not. Secure it well enough that looters would go elsewhere for the time being? Yup. At that point we'd be packing up to get out of dodge and head to the cabin or farm.

> Are the phones and police dispatch still working?

That definitely seems like a weak link. Around here there's been a huge push to move all of the existing copper landlines to fibre or coax, with battery backups in peoples' houses.

> Do you have anything else to eat with your week's supply of bread?

Kraft Dinner, canned chilli, and a bunch of home-canned vegetables (it's fun!).

Longer term, it's going to depend quite a bit on what time of the year it is. There's a root cellar at the family farm that is full at the end of harvest, and there's fresh veggies all summer. I've got about 80 rounds of .308 (I hunt, it's fun!) for big game, about 100 12ga birdshot rounds, and about a bazillion rounds of .22LR for smaller game. Father-in-law has a grain bin full of lentils I think, although I don't know if there's any specific processing that needs to happen between harvest and "ready to eat".

> Are you even emotionally prepared for what life is like now if things are getting this bad and you just now decided to have some extra flour on hand?

That's... hard to tell. In this scenario with riots and looting, we know where we'd run to, and I think we'd be fine for a while when we get there, but I'm not sure either of us are ruthless enough to actually make it there if shit is really bad.

> Wait - is that a fever and non-productive cough you're starting to feel?

That's definitely a wildcard in all of it too. The area around our "out of town" spot does have a small primary care clinic, but no intensive care facilities. Might be able to find compressed oxygen and a nasal cannula, but need a ventilator? GL;HF.

> What are you wiping your ass with!?

Old socks :D. More seriously though... I should pick up a jug of lye crystals next time I'm at the hardware store. Making soap from scratch is fun too! (although I'd rather make it from pre-extracted vegetable oil and lye crystals than rendered animal fat and lye extracted from wood ash)