Only 20 Minutes

9/8/2012


Only 20 Minutes

Let's say hypothetically that you have 20 minutes to leave your house for perhaps forever. The reason doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the minutes and you've only got 20 and not a second more.

Here's the question. What do you take with you? I've thought about this a number of times and here's what I think I'd do.  I used to believe that I would take photos first because they are irreplaceable. Truth is though they are memories. Memories that are stored in the recesses of your brain for all time. How many times a year do you REALLY look through your photos?  Hmm, what's that? Once, twice or if you're like me perhaps never.

After thinking hard about the 20 minute test, here's what I would take. Medicine would be a given, valuable jewelry only (costume stuff can be replaced), and the pets. Then I would head upstairs and grab birth certificates, passports, social security cards, "pink" slips to the cars and any other crucial papers. Why? Because if you find yourself homeless or displaced for some reason, you must be able to prove who you are and what you own.  The important papers of your life are difficult to replace.

Another thought is to keep in your cell phone, because I guess everybody has one now, all the phone numbers for the professionals in your life (insurance agent for instance).  Provided you could come up with a system of keeping track of policy numbers in a non-obvious way that would be useful too.

Hopefully, your crucial papers are all in one spot, so you can grab and go. My papers are in different folders but sitting next to each other in the filing cabinet - literally just pick them up together.

Okay your 20 minutes are up. How'd you do?  Jeff and I have thought through this process several times and each time, regardless of the scenario, we come up with the same answer - take paper.  If you have extra time and space then you take time to gather up some treasures.  Some day when you're bored look around at your house with a view toward which thing(s) would you absolutely want to take?  It might be a favorite needlepoint or the family bible.   The important thing is to KNOW before disaster strikes, what is important to you.

When you're racing against the clock that is not the time to scratch your head about what your valuable possession(s) are, other than the critical documents I mentioned earlier.  You should have already thought about it and know the answer. An emergency is no time to dilly dally around with hysteria mounting.

Try and give this some thought. Check on those documents and get them centrally located for easy retrieval. Look at your possessions with a new eye.  What would you miss the most?  Remember, you can't take it all, you only have 20 minutes.

P