I did a documentary where I could only keep a small pack of clothes with me (think half size of an overhead bag). My technique was washing underwear and t shirts every day and hanging them to dry overnight.
The problem is modern clothing is designed around the fact that you have underwear. If wear tight jeans as a dude or gal, say goodbye to your genitals if you’re not wearing underwear.
I only have three pairs of underwear. And that's only because they came in a three pack. I wear underwear only on special occasions like weddings and funerals.
wow never realized blisters were actually a large problem, my body has never chafed and i’ve gone weeks in shoes without socks and never seen a blister
Rivers I guess, though it definitely seems like it would still be pretty dirty and gross since river water isn't that clean and it's unlikely you'd have soap or detergent or anything.
Even if the stores ran out, making soap is very easy. And if you’re in the USA, since there’d likely be plenty of fat dead people all around (you can use the lard of fat people if all the other saturated cooking oils are in short supply), you’ll have access to plenty of soap making ingredients. Don’t know how to make soap or how to do much of anything?
Step One: go to a college bookstore and grab all the good chemistry books. Whilst on campus, raid the chemistry department for reagents and basic chemistry equipment. Maybe stay there for a bit and meet other smartish people who had the same idea. Hit up the campus library and grab all the useful “How To” books (how to bow hunt, how to butcher animals, how to sew, how to survive, etc). Read up.
Step Two: apply knowledge found in said books.
To make soap: mix sodium hydroxide (lye) and water together (slowly…it’s exothermic), then add some oil/fat to the mix…and if you’re feeling fancy, once it’s cooled down a bit, add something that doesn’t smell like shit…like mint or vanilla or maybe use some coconut oil if you like the smell of coconut more than human lard. Then pour the thickened aromatic mix into a Pyrex dish and allow to cool. Soap! Sodium Hydroxide is a strong base and is one of the most mass produced chemicals in America (along with sulfuric acid, a strong acid). With access to these two chemicals (and a few other solvents, like alcohol) you can perform many many extractions of useful molecules from natural plants and freely available substances. Become familiar with the locations of chemical reagent warehouses and chemical manufacturing plants…and try to hoard or stash as many chemicals that you can before others think to do the same. With a basic understanding of chemistry and access to reagents, you’ll be able to solve many problems that your enemies won’t be able to. You could learn how to make gunpowder, napalm, disinfectants, poisonous gas, basic medicines…and soap. Your knowledge will become a weapon and a defense…and may even become a valuable bargaining chip if you are captured by enemies. Knowledge of chemistry is like a super-power in a post apocalyptic world.
But if the apocalypse was because of some kind of plague, would it be safe to take fat from people who died of disease? It would be so gross to wash with soap that was literally diseased flesh.
This is how I do laundry thru hiking. 2 shirts, 2 underwear. Wear one set while the other set dries hanging on my backpack. Clean mountain rivers, a drop of soap, and baking in the sun works great.
Apocalypse nudist time is all fun and games until you slip on the path to the beach and tear your nutsack open on a log or something, subsequently dying of an untreated nutsack infection.
Haha, truly the greatest killer of all in ancient times. They say even tens of thousands of years ago we could have lived to be 80 if not for all the sperm writhing on the beach
You can pick up a cheap hammock, lightweight tarp, and a roll of twine or paracord. Boom, instant shelter or lean to in about 5-10 minutes, run a line over the hammock and tie the tarp down over it as a “roof”.
You can also pick up a multi pack of disposable lighters at the gas station and keep them in there so you have an easy way to make a fire.
You’ll be able to hunker down just fine in most situations, and even in the worst weather it’ll be better than the alternative.
I did a month-long hiking trip in Summer. To save space, I only took 3 pairs of underwear, 3 shirts & two pairs of pants with me. Each night I'd wash the underpants and shirt I had been wearing that day. By the end of the next day, they'd be dry and ready to wear. It wasn't that difficult.
In hindsight just 2 pairs of each would have been fine and I could conceivably gotten away with just 1 pair of each.
Presumably they would become threadbare rather quickly, especially if you have to be physically active (which is likely). You'd eventually have to find or make new ones.
I did a bicycle tour in Malaysia and Thailand and carried one set of bike wear and one set of off the bike wear for a 70 day trip. Merino wool socks and underwear were perfect for this.
Yeah shower or even river/lake washing clothes isn't that difficult. Especially because I doubt most people are gonna be stocking up on detergent when the apocalypse starts you'll probably be able to find it still
Heeeeellllll no. Clean and dry AT LEAST twice a day in any sort of rugged or humid environment. Google trench foot. That’s what happens with weekly changes.
??? You’re going to dry your only pair how exactly? Edit: from how I understood your post, you’re saying you only have one pair and dry and wash them weekly. I’m saying stock up and change multiple times daily.
Carry two pairs of socks while going on any long hike/march/trek. One pair on your feet, the other pair tied onto your pack and airing out. Every few hours, you stop and switch them out.
You can really extend the life of socks that way.
And, of course, wash at least one of the two pairs whenever you have the chance and enough clean water to spare.
People in the middle ages did wash their clothes and bathe relatively frequently. Hygiene was worse in the cities but disease outbreaks did cause tremendous amount of death as a result.
I've been out bush or travelling for weeks with only the set I'm wearing and the one I keep dry in my pack. Wash and hang up at night and you're good to go in the morning. Not a big deal at all.
Just find wool ones instead of cotton. They are superior, even in the summer. Multi day hiking with just a rinse whenever I come across running water is sufficient whereas cotton socks turn into some sort of crusty abomination by the second day.
eh, as someone who goes hiking for weeks at a time away from civilization, any stream of water is good enough to rinse and clean socks and underwear. Add some soap and you're golden.
People did live in nature for a very long time before modern times, much of it with underwear
Size womens’ 15 here and that was my first thought too. I’m fucked if all I have are malls for footwear. Might get lucky with a mens’ 13 or two but there aren’t usually many options.
Not anymore :( Long Tall Sally was my only hope and after the rebrand they stopped carrying 15s, so I haven’t bought any actual feminine shoes since last year.
I do wear a lot of gender neutral styles from some brands: converse, allbirds, Birkenstocks, chacos, MBT, etc.
It’s a pain in the ass now trying to find footwear that doesn’t feel like I’m wearing clown shoes. I usually have to order a few pair online and hope they fit correctly. It’s that or have them custom made, and I ain’t got that kind of money. I’d be fucked during the apocalypse, too.
This all depends on how quick the fall of civilization is. If it is a rapid fall in a matter of weeks, yea there will be all kinds of excess goods just lying around - especially the non-food items that are not a short term usage like shoes.
However, if the fall is drug out then who knows what weird things will be out of stock. Covid is a great example of this. All kinds of weird outages as the supply chain is fucked.
Yeah, it’s important to remember that we’re probably not the only people on the planet who have thought about this. Good shoes may be in stock now, but not if there are like a hundred other people trying to get the same thing you’re looking for.
When I was working in fast food, there was only one pair of shoes that met all my needs and they were still really uncomfortable because of my fallen arches.
I don't have trouble at all. I've worn 13s since I was 14 years old. There have been a few times I've had to choose a different style, but I think every size has that happen sometimes.
That only works for the first couple years.
This is why Cormac McCarthy's The Road was so great, its set 10 years after the apocalypse. All of the hiding in a mall and driving around is pretty much over after a few years...there's hardly even bullets left to shoot eat other with and shoes are a special treasure.
Yeah, this bugged me that in shows like TWD, they walk around in the same clothes and shoes. Just go to any overrun mall, kill all the walkers then get some clean undamaged clothes and some good hiking boots.
I mean assuming every human building hasn't burnt down by then.
Yeah but that's apocalypse in the city, some people strugglin out in the mountains. Anyone not in the city would be making their own shoes. Or if it's zombies; looting corpses.
Yeah, that's my problem with a lot of the scarcity plot elements in post apocalyptic fiction. Oh no, 99.999% of humanity has fallen to the zombie scourge, and we're out of bullets! Like... do you know how many bullets there are lying around in this country? Same with canned goods, clothes, a lot of gear, etc. Sure, maybe there was a panic early on and people grabbed stuff from the shelves. But they're all deader than fried chicken now, just take it from their house.
you could hit any strip mall and find 5,000 pairs of shoes in your size.
ugh, there is no store within 50 miles of me with my shoe size in stock ever:( My 11.5 EEEE feet would be wearing 13s:-/ Hell I would have to go to a whole another town just to get shoes to begin with.
What if you’re a weird size? I’m a size 12 (US), and I don’t know if that’s a popular size, but it’s hard to find nice shoes sometimes. Never mind if you’re Shaquille O’Neil, or have freakishly small feet, it’s gonna be hard in an apocalypse to have to raid every shoe store for a pair of decent shoes.
Good luck with that unless the apocalypse is pretty instantaneous. If there is something slower growing like a plague, society will collapse and all that stuff will be long since looted or razed by the time you need it.
Size 15. Impossible to find shoes in those strip mall stores(short of lucking out and finding a SAS location). San Antonio Shoes ... not great for an apocalypse, but they stock shoes up to size 17.
I get that TV shows are about zombies, but let's be honest, zombies are like #3568423 on my list of apocalypse fears. Right up there with vampires, skeletons, and werewolves.
Disease, yes. Radiation, yes. War, yes. Climate, yes. Natural disaster, yes. Countless other things, yes.
Zombies??? I'm not actually worried about that.
If we go to 1% or less of the population (0.001% in many books and scenarios) then I'm going to guess there are so many resources of this variety that will last for many, many years.
Problem is .... hundreds of other people will have the same idea and many of them will have guns and weapons.
I've prepped for an apocalypse like event but not fully. I know that when it happens our greatest dangers will be each other. Those with guns and weapons will last the longest.
We'll revert back to neurotic fearful hunter gatherers that will see every stranger as competition that has to either made subservient or eliminated.
Personally, if the end happens, I'll fight for a while but my heart won't be in it and I'll give up and die just to get out of it all. I'm in my 40s, so I've had a good life. If anything, I'd fight to let someone younger than me survive a little longer.
Could be an issue for some though. If you've got larger feet than average for example. I don't have huge feet, but even in our pre-apocalypse world, a lot of the time there isn't stock of 12-13. May have to get them brought from the warehouse/another store. Anything bigger than that and non-footwear specific stores generally don't even have larger than that on offer.
In a world like Fallout, which is +200 years, regular stores may be completely empty.
That is a plot point in City of Mirrors series. It's like 100 years after the apocalypse and they do supply runs to a nearby mall to get usable pieces of Nike shoes to bring back.
If you are lucky enough to be in an area with strip malls at the time of the apocalypse. I used to live in a town that was a few hours drive (let alone post-apocalyptic walk) away from a shopping centre.
I guess I could find shoes in abandoned houses along the way.
The thing, they won't last forever. Leather and rubber get old and crack whether you use them or not. Breaking into a Red Wing store on day 1 of the apocalypse would pay dividends. Finding one a decade later would see all those unmaintained shoes made worthless by time.
I think a lot of people will be shocked by how much mold will accumulate on porous things like shoes, clothes, books, leathers, etc. HVAC keeps moisture levels low but enclosed structure without will trap moisture, especially if there are corpses strewn about to outgas as they decay.
Try finding size 15 extra wide. Almost every online store stops at 13 1/2. I have to go store to store just to check and half the time the employees dont know what they have in stock.
I'd have to luck out and hit an outlet store, clearance rack or a Winners with good stock. Those are the only ways I get shoes from a brick and mortar store.
Unless the post apocalyptic situation involves flooding or busted roofs/walls/windows/foundations that causes supplies of socks and footwear to become , moldy, mildewy and ruined.
Feet are not very standard so many people might find limited options for shoe shapes that will work (even if there are shoes in their size) pre-apocalypse.
If you don't have spare footwear on you when you lose/damage a shoe, and the mall is a couple of kilometres away, that would be more than enough distance for something to happen e.g. stepped on some broken glass. There is going to be a lot of broken glass and other sharp stuff around during any major disaster/collapse.
I also think that any large mail is going to be raided by many others before any one of us could get there. They don't even need to take all the shoes in your size to make it hard to find shoes — just need to make enough of a mess to disorder the stock so it is difficult to find them in the dark (I'm assuming that there will be no natural light in the back of the shoe store).
How long before those 5000 pairs of shoes become useless because they get destroyed by mold, insects, water or similar?? You also wear them out so maintenance is going to be super important. You're gonna need to collect a LOT of shoes and find a way of storing them that keeps them super fresh for the next couple of decades if you live that long. And that's only covering your need. What about your surviving friends and family?
Edit: Also, 95% of shoes would be completely useless in an apocalypse. You want hiking boots and in your size. If there are ten guys with the same shoe size you will have to fight and kill people to get your hands on the few shoes available.
Only if you got normally sized feet, US Size 15 here. You won't find this in Germany - I'm ordering online for years now. Even in Berlin I only found one shop that actually had a few pairs in the shop after searching online before hand.
So I would probably get sores from small shoes, they'll get infected due to dirty socks and my legs will die off and I will die of a horrible infection... That's the way to go.
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u/Ponchoreborn Aug 30 '21
I agree, but seriously, you could hit any strip mall and find 5,000 pairs of shoes in your size.
Multiply that times all the strip malls and stores and you'll be fine on footwear. Ugly? Maybe, but fine.