Valley Commentary : You Can’t Be Too Prepared : So, you have flashlights, batteries, water, canned food. It’s easy to be smug about earthquake readiness, and easier to end up being embarrassed.

My wife and I used to feel guilty about not being prepared for an earthquake. Our emergency kit consisted of a fire extinguisher, a can opener and one size-D battery.

After the Whittier earthquake, we decided it was finally time to become survivalists in case we were still around when the Big One hit.

We went to the front of the telephone book and followed the instructions, which said we should have enough supplies on hand for 72 hours.

We bought flashlights, batteries and blankets. We studied the water-allocation advice and bought five five-gallon bottles for just the two of us.

For food, we purchased canned goods such as fruit cocktail, vegetables, chili and juices. We also bought an endless supply of ramen noodles, since they would require only hot water that we could boil on the grill.

We had three bags of charcoal, two bottles of starter fluid and two boxes of matches. We had wrenches, extra shoes, a radio and a first aid kit. We had $20 in cash. We were ready for the next disaster.

For years we bragged to our friends and neighbors that they could come on over if they ran out of supplies after the Big One.

Then came Jan. 17. Look out, earthquake, here we come!

As I ran to the front door of our house behind my wife, who was shouting, “Oh my God!” I kept thinking we would be in fat city if the house was left standing.

In a few minutes the earth quieted down, and we decided it was safe to go back inside. I located the flashlights and the extra batteries. The batteries were good--I’d just bought a new set--but the bulbs apparently had gone dead.

The blankets that we kept in the closet by the door had been ripening too long for my wife, so two weeks earlier she had given them to the Salvation Army.

I had been on a closet-cleaning binge myself around Christmas and had thrown away the spare shoes.

The water was down to one five-gallon bottle. The weather had been hot for three weeks, so we drank the rest.

The first-aid kit had been pillaged through the years of its Band-Aids and aspirin.

We had forgotten to rotate the canned goods for a couple of years, so cans that had green things on the labels had beige things inside.

We tried barbecuing chicken from the freezer before it spoiled, but without spices or barbecue sauce (all shattered and spilled) it was grim chewing.

By the second night we were down to crackers, Cup-a-Soup and ramen noodles. We tried the noodles, boiling them up and dropping in the little “flavor packets.”

I don’t know about new ramen noodles, but 6 1/2-year-old ramen noodles are really, really terrible.

Throughout the crisis, no neighbors came over to share our provisions. One night we went next door for grilled chicken, lamb and beef with another couple. They didn’t even need our matches.

When the phones came back on Thursday, I had to decide whom to call first. I thought of letting my family on the East Coast know we were OK. I thought of calling my church to ask for prayers.

Instead, I dialed information and asked for Domino’s Pizza. We ordered a large bell-pepper-and-mushroom with extra cheese. I knew that $20 was going to be enough.