Extra, Extra

For many of us, the glitch-free turn of the century means there’s now little need to hunker in the bunker surrounded by cases of batteries and pork and beans. But a question remains: What the heck do you do with all the junk that was supposed to see you through the chaos of Y2K?

Across the nation, food pantries have announced they are more than willing to accept any excess Spam and Yodels. But not everyone will be giving up their stashes. Olivia Barham of Santa Monica spent about $500 on a year’s supply of freeze-dried food. She doesn’t regret it and doesn’t plan to give it away, because, as she pointed out, “it has a 15-year shelf life.”

But is it edible?

“If you’re hungry,” Barham said, “you’ll eat it.”

As for other stockpiled items, not everything will be easy to unload or to keep for the next Big One:

* Generators: Don’t even think about trying to return the $4,500, 11,000-watt Honda gas generator you bought so you could watch “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos” after the world came to a fiery demise.

“These are not vacuum cleaners,” Greg Marks said of the high-end generators he sells at Pete’s Cycle Co. in Baltimore. “We’re not obligated to take returns.” He paused. “Within reason, we would,” he admitted, finally. “But we would have to charge a 20% restocking fee.”

* Gasoline: Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the Gasoline and Automotive Service Dealers Assn., a trade group based in New York, can say in a heartbeat where would-be survivalists should put their extra gasoline: “Put it in your car and burn it.”

Service stations won’t accept returned gas, he said. “That would be against the law.” And don’t get any bright ideas about storing excess gasoline for the coming of Y3K, either. After about a year, gasoline breaks down.

“It turns to shellac,” Bombardiere said.

* Guns: “It’s way too early to know about that,” said Ted Szajer, owner of L.A. Guns. “Normally . . . if there is some kind of fear that makes you want to buy a gun, that’s not going to go away overnight.”

“Now that people have got something, they’re going to keep it,” said Patrick Laughlin, manager of a gun shop in Parkville, Md. Laughlin said he sold lots of Mossberg Model 500 short-barrel police-type shotguns to people who wanted to protect themselves from impending chaos. If customers should ask--and so far, no one has--he would not accept returns. Besides, he said, the need for a gun might arise later.

“People are talking about Feb. 29,” Laughlin said. “Then there’s the fact that 2000 is actually the last year of the millennium, not 1999. It makes sense to have something.”

* Survival guides: Selling those copies of “The Y2K Family Survival Guide” and “Bust the Y2K Bug” probably won’t yield a windfall of cash, according to Courtney McCullough of Normal’s Books & Records in Baltimore. Of the thousands of used books lining the store’s shelves, few are bestsellers, and even fewer are trendy books or computer books.

“The thing with used books is, when we buy something we can’t send it back to the publisher if it doesn’t sell. We have to hope somebody buys it,” McCullough explained. Just like bunker dwellers, sellers of used books want items with shelf life. McCullough recommends holding on to survival guides in case of snowstorms, hurricanes or power failures, much in the way he’s holding onto the bottles of water he bought last month--just in case. He’s found a new use for them already.

“My 3 1/2-year-old daughter is arranging them as toys right now.”