The first flakes haven’t fallen yet and already I am deeeeee-sgusted.
I’m a cranky old yankee, so please make allowances. (Small “y” yankees are the tough old bastards of yore. The big “Y” is some kind of New Yawk aberration.)
New Englanders USED TO BE known for taking adversity in stride. A snowstorm on the way? I’ll fill the wood box. A BIG STORM in the offing? Then I’ll top off the rock salt bucket too. Maybe even a HOWLING BLIZZARD this time? Enough already. Jeez.
This afternoon, I saw lines at every gas pump in town. This for cars that are going to be PARKED for the next three days! And the supermarket parking lot looked worse than Black Friday at Wal-Mart. For God’s sake, why? You dopes will get to the store again in another day or two, no matter how much snow we get, you ninnies. Relax already!
Old yankees like me are never unprepared. Never. Of course I’ve got gas in the car. Of course I’ve got enough food to last a week before I’m down to dried beans and salt pork. (Well, make that six months, a la prepping.) And of course I’ve got a shovel, mittens, boots, a windshield scraper and rock salt.
Hell, I’ve even got a snowblower, a generator and a roof rake in case it gets really deep! I’m dug in and ready for anything God wants to throw at me, man!
But these wimpy, liberal, pissy-pants sheep running to the store screaming for a gallon of milk because there’s a storm coming ... can’t stand ‘em. Lord!
You have exactly the same view I do. I’m native MDer and we’re known for being ninnies with winter, but my mother never was wimpy and my father was raised in upper NY and mostly ME.
It’s a big inconvenience, mostly. We’re lucky because all my family lives within 5 min of each other. So if some lose power, we try to head to the others’ houses if it doesn’t come on in decent time. Otherwise, I never saw a great need to go to the store for ANY storm, even the huge 1 3 years ago. We have plenty of food, and the great thing about TRUE winter is, if your power is out, put your perishables OUTSIDE! As you said, you’ll never be worse off than maybe 3 days, and the average American has more than 3 days’ worth of food and toilet paper any given time! So there is no need to panic and take everything off the shelves!
1 time I incidentally went to a grocery store for my weekly right before the big storm of Dec ‘09 (yes, that same season - biggest on record). It was packed. I thought it was because we were a week away from Christmas, then realized there was supposed to be a big storm (it was). Nightmare being in the store then with my exuberant little toddler in his shopping “car”. Yes, it was 20”, but still not the end of the world!
Great post...outstanding! By the way...Monday forecast for Boston? RAIN with a high of 45...this 'catastrophe' will be half-melted and forgotten by next weekend.
Better a blizzard than an ice storm. Those royally stink. Usually massive power outages, trees busted everywhere, etc with those.