Posted on 02/05/2010 11:35:50 AM PST by La Lydia
Okay, so I just got back from the store...DC is close to a full-blown panic about the storm heading our way. There's an interesting race-to-the-bottom dynamic that overtakes DC when it snows. People hie to the supermarket as if a billion Chinese zombies with frickn' lasers strapped to their heads are about to invade from outer space and nobody knows the correct translation of "Klaatu burada nikto." When I lived in Adam's Morgan (the most New York City-ish DC neighborhood) I was amazed at how people would buy not just canned goods and, say, chili-fixings, but gallons and gallons of bottled water. I mean when was the last time a snow storm actually caused residents of apartment buildings in a major American city to be trapped inside for weeks at a time?
The problem, however, is that when everyone knows that this is what happens to DCers when it snows, there's pressure to behave the same way. If you know you might need something for dinner on Sunday and you know the locusts will pick the bones of the Safeway until they are bleached white, then you, too, have to race and get those things before they run out. It's like in college when there are more guys in the room than slices of pizza available.
I was standing with some folks for the better part of the hour while on line (BTW native New Yorkers say "on line" not "in line") and we were all discussing how stupid it was to be putting up with the chaos and delay, and yet we waited.
Everyone was super polite, too. I watched one lady's cart and saved her place in line while she ran out to the liquor store next door, and vice versa. Whenever a shopper needed to get by to find something on the shelf, we were very accommodating. And when a young man accidentally cut in front of us in line, not knowing that it stretched all the way up the aisle to the deli counter, every one was very helpful, holding him down while I savagely beat him with a can of chickpeas.
THAT made me smile!
My suggestion then - skip the grocery store and go to the liquor store to stock up for the weekend!
MSM Headline: “Obama and snowstorm save a gazillion jobs!”
Make a big, big pot of chili. Then, the liquor store...
I left the office early today, and stopped at Safeway here in Virginia. Place was mobbed. I didn’t really need anything- I was sort of in ‘social observer mode’. I was going to get a couple of little things, but decided that it wasn’t worth standing in line over the span of several birthdays.
Good work on the queue-jumper. I’m hunkered down now for ‘The Blizzard of Doom’.
I liked the part about clubbing the line-jumper with a can of chickpeas.
Which Safeway? I was at the one in Fairfax on Nutley yesterday and it was hellish. I have had some “interesting” experiences in the Bailey’s Crossroads Safeway.
Well done, Jonah. This is a perfect description of my first hurricane experience in Houston. We were in the process of moving there and I was waiting for my husband to arrive.
I went to the store to get the week’s groceries for my kids while they waited at the short term rented apartment that I had rented waiting fot my house to be finished. I started down the aisle with my list (Sunday night) and I could barely move. People were trundling by with grocery carts overflowing with toilet paper and gallons and gallons of milk. All I wanted was peanut butter, chees, lunchmenat, and bread. No bread left. Adding to the difficulties was that in those days Houston still had “blue laws” and certain items were disallowed on Sunday. Those aisles were blocked and you couldn’t shop there at all.
When I got back to the apartment I found that we were under “hurricane watch” and I didn’t even know what that meant. We survived; Delia came and went; and our new house suffered little harm — a broken window and wet wallpaper that had to be replaced.
It’s just as bad here, we’re about an hour and a half southeast of DC. Went to Walmart early yesterday morning and got a few last minute things, swung by the liquor store yesterday afternoon. We’re set for the weekend. It’s funny how here everyone is scrambling for snow shovels as we’ve had our shovel for going on 4 yrs now and it still works just fine.
I know that one, but I was closer to home- in Dale City.
Here in southern Ohio we’re getting snow too.
Yes, I went to the store last night, because there was a possibility I would be watching my grandkids today. They eat sandwiches, and I was low on bread.
C’mon people, the folks at the store were planning to pick up bread and milk and other groceries sometime in the next 48 hrs anyway. Why criticze them?
Besides, my real mission was last night was to stock up on chocolate.
Stay safe and warm, La Lydia!
Last friday in Va Beach I stopped into the local Kroger to pick up some coffee, bacon, eggs for weekend. no many parking spaces, but I happened upon one and stepped indoors to see that the express lane wound all the way down aisle 6. So I walked out. As I approached my pickup, I noticed the 7-11 across the street had almost no cars. I walked across the div highway and grabbed my groceries and was out in a minute. No line. Ah well...
This is funny! I lived many years in Cleveland. A few years back we had 120+ inches of snow for the winter (not bad as big cities go) and never once that year or any other year, including a nasty 100 mph blizzard in January ‘78 and 100+ inches for that year, did I ever go to the store to stock up.
Don’t these people have places to store food and drink in their houses?
It’s not as if they are up in the mountains and they get trapped in their house for months by 20 feet of snow all at once.
It means get milk,bread,bananas a storm is approaching!
Has been that way for a long time.
During the blizzard of 1979 DC and the surrounding areas hadn’t had much of a snowplow fleet, but the area was lucky that Tractorcade (farmer protest) was in town. The farmers who drove their large pieces of farm equipment to DC to camp on the mall all pitched in and helped provide critical transport services like get hospital workers to the hospital, provide emergency transport to sick people, drive plow drivers to work, etc.
But yes, there is always a panic before the storm unlike any other place I’ve lived.
the running joke here in Southern MD is that milk, bread and toilet paper are the magic supplies that one MUST have to survive a snowstorm.
Having driven in DC a few times, I am SO glad I’m not there now. Lots of crappy narrow streets, a few of them on hills? Right on the water? No thanks. I’ll sit here in my townhome in southern MD with plenty of food and beer, pointing and laughing.
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