Hunkering

If you're here in Texas, you've been inundated with news about Hurricane Ike. Those who keep track of such things knows that even if you're 500 miles away, you probably have friends and/or family in the path of the storm. And, in Houston, those in charge of such things evacuated folks who lived in low-lying areas, but told the rest of the citizenry to...

...and this is an exact quote...

...hunker down at home.

I wasn't exactly sure what it meant so I looked up "hunker" in the dictionary. It has origins in a Dutch word that means, "to squat." The definition mentioned to settle in or dig in for a sustained period. So, kudos to those leaders who used the word correctly in a sentence.

And, it got me to thinking.

What if, for no reason at all, our leaders told us that we should all just hunker down at home. Maybe they could tell us to hunker down at home for a whole weekend sometimes or maybe just an entire Saturday...then follow it up a month later with just a hunker down at home two hours. You know, closed all businesses and such and had mandatory time at home with the family. You could do what you wanted with your two hours or your weekend, but the entire citizenry just...

...hunkered down at home. No job. No games. No outside world responsibilities.

And, in your hunkering, you could use the time to get organized and clean out closets. Or change your oil. Or grill meat & stuff. Or play Wii or Uno Attack. Or nap. Or read. Yes, I think it'd be okay to have group hunkerings, too, especially if they were only the two-hour variety.

Now, I'm trying to figure out who I talk to to get this ball rolling. Because I don't think we should hunker down for only safety reasons (which, I'd imagine, would take all the fun out of the hunkering).