Why I Keep Military Grade Medical Supplies in My Car

"I'm never watching Planet Earth ever again!"

My mother attended a barbecue with some friends, recently. She described them as late-twenties/early-thirties for the most part, Ren Faire geeks who play CCGs and smoke corncob pipes, and I get the feeling based on facial hair that they listen to both a lot of metal and classical music.

Basically, all the radio station dorks I hung out with in college. Awesome.

In any event, and I don't even wonder how the subject comes up anymore, I guess my mom started talking about me and my friends, and all the horrible things we end up doing by accident in the course of successfully doing much, much worse things. I believe the line she uses is, "You know, if they were out drinking and chasing girls, that would be a lot less dangerous."

Well, rest assured, we do quite a bit of that now, too. In fact, we very rarely play midnight Frisbee in the dark anymore. Most of us have work in the morning, so it's just sex-drugs-rock-and-roll on the weekends. Nothing fancy.

Still, we're prone to bruises. Proof of concept: a few weeks ago, completely hammered, someone tried to ride his bike across the street for an omelet (something I was not okay with, as you can still get a DUI, though he insists he has done it countless times). Long-story-short: facefull of asphalt, black eye.

We are not bright men, when we choose to set aside our law schools and magna cums.

I suppose this is why my mother's new friend floated a couple packages of QuickClot emergency EMS gauze our way. It's pretty cool. Rolls of it are standard issue for all field combat military personnel, now. It significantly speeds clotting and can save your life. Basically, it's what we're going to use until cryogenics takes over.

I checked online, these things go for anywhere between $75 and $125 per five-pack, and the cheaper sites require you to be a medical company to place orders. (ZuckerCo once got me my special anti-bacterial ear soap for a botched piercing, but I'd prefer to keep away from an outright committal of fraud.)

So … yeah, I'm keeping those in the trunk of my car next to the regular first aid kit, the road flares, the pocket knife, pulleys, grappling hook, emergency towel, colored pencils, flashlight, air horn, rape whistle, bullwhip, and thermal survival wrap.

Because knowing us, it's entirely possible we might end up needing it.