.

Quick. Call the cops. Seems I've been robbed.

Yup, sometime during the past year or two a prowler must have slipped into my house and made off with my valuables.

Once inside, he cleverly went past the stuff we'd miss right away, the TV, the pickleball paddles. This bandit took batteries - dozens of them - and cans of tuna. He pocketed peanut butter and duct tape. He absconded with flashlights, paper plates and wooden matches. Even our Band-Aids.

Gone. All gone.

I made this startling discovery Wednesday after seeing the front page of the paper.

“Youngkin Declares State Of Emergency Ahead Of Hurricane Helene,” it screamed.

Chances are we’ll be fine here in our little cul de sac by the sea. Due west of us? Not so much,

That’s when I thought about all of those procrastinators in Richmond who were headed to hardware stores, to fight over that last roll of duct tape and that last sheet of plywood.

I smiled smugly.

That will never be me. I know a thing or two about storms. I have a well-stocked hurricane kit..

Or so I thought.

Still, given the news, it seemed prudent to dust off my Rubbermaid life-support tub to check that my storm stash was in order.

I popped the lid and stared in disbelief.

A single can of Sterno sat in the bottom.

“Who took my stuff?” I wailed.

Then I remembered.

There was that time I wanted to make a tuna surprise but was out of Bumblebee.

I'll borrow a couple of cans and replace them later, I thought.

The peanut butter? Ran out. When the grandkids were visiting.

This is a bona fide emergency, I reasoned as I snatched the jar.

And so it went.

Batteries? My latte frother needed the AAs.

Flashlights? Grabbed them to take to the 4th of July fireworks and never put them back.

Paper products? They went on a picnic.

Matches? Oops. I had no way to light the grill and company was coming.

Duct tape? The console in my car started popping open and rather than spend 300 bucks on a new lid, I duct-taped it down.

Bottled water? I was thirsty.

Granola bars? I was hungry.

That doesn't make me a bad person. It does, however, make me an unprepared person.

Those of us who have lived along the coast for decades know - or ought to - that these capricious cyclones can strengthen, weaken, blow out to sea or head right at you without much notice.

One minute you're safe. The next, The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore is clinging to a light pole in front of your house.

"This is amazing. Totally unexpected," he's shrieking into the camera. "They said it was a minimal storm that was going far inland, but now this.”

"What's even worse," he hollers as a gust of wind lifts him in the air: "I've been told that people on this street used all their batteries and ate all their emergency food months ago. Hard to believe, isn't it?"

Not really…