As you’ve probably heard,
it’s snowing here in the Southeastern part of the country today. Although the snow is beautiful to watch, too
much of it makes me a bit nervous. “What
if the electricity goes off? What if we
run out of food? What if the grocery
stores run out of food?” After those
kinds of thoughts flit through my mind, it’s a very short leap for my active
imagination to jump to the obvious questions…“What if zombies start coming
out?” and “Where is the nearest vacant mall or prison where we could set up
housekeeping if the zombies start coming out?”
(It should be noted that Charming…and by extension, myself,…are die-hard
“Walking Dead” fans, which is probably not a good thing as evidenced by the
rest of this post.) This naturally leads
my mind to think of the “Doomsday Preppers” TV show. Charming and I are not “Doomsday
Preppers” who hoard tons of food, water, and small arms just waiting for the
“apocalypse”. In fact, after watching that show, I have serious concerns about the continuation and future of mankind if it will be depending only on that gene pool. However, something happened a few years ago
that did make me decide that it just makes sense to keep some essentials on
hand for an emergency.
About twelve years ago, I
moved to a small town about a half hour from where I grew up. Did I decide to live inside the town limits because
it had three grocery stores? Subconsciously,
that may have been a factor, as I really do love food. Several years back, we had a really deep
snow. As I recall, we got just over a
foot of the white, fluffy stuff. As luck
would have it, I had just finished my regular weekly grocery shopping before
the storm warning was announced.
Luckily, there was no need to rush back to the store. So Charming and I were snug and warm in our house
with plenty of food to eat, oblivious to the swirl of snow that was piling high
outside. Ahhhh…just like a fairy tale.
As soon as the snow stopped
and the road crew had made their first swipe through our neighborhood, Charming
decided he needed ice cream from the store.
(I declare, he is the only person I know who “needs” ice cream to
survive when, just outside the door, it’s 15 degrees and there are a bazillion
ice crystals floating through the air.) We
got into the car and drove to the store.
The store’s parking lot was full, but it had only been partially plowed
so I reasoned that perhaps it just “looked” like there were masses of people there. We went inside, where my “introvert radar” picked
up on a certain type of electricity in the air.
Trying to ignore it, Charming and I split up. He went to get the necessary ice cream and I
went to pick up potato chips.
As I rounded the corner from
the fresh produce section, I noticed that the shelves in the meat case were
bare and people were buzzing around at a hurried pace. Hmmm…ignore it. I walked past the bread aisle; nothing on
those shelves. Hmmm…potato chip aisle just up ahead. No cheese on the dairy shelves and no milk in
the milk refrigerators. I begin to
notice a swirl of people and shopping carts moving erratically through the
aisles. I’m a little breathless by
now. Finally, I made it to the snack section. There was a family of three hunkered down in
deep conversation, each had a selection of chips in their hands. They put them ALL in their shopping
cart. I suddenly felt a rush of panic
wash over me…PREPPE RS WERE TAKIN G ALL OF THE CHIPS! I quickly
grabbed three bags of potato chips, (to this day, I don't know why I grabbed three bags) hugged them to my chest, and dodging the
zombies (I mean, people), I sprinted to the ice cream section to find
Charming. When I finally caught sight of
him halfway down the aisle, I barked at him, “We have GOT to get out of here NOW !” (I don’t really yell
publicly; I prefer to think of it as whispering…loudly.) Since this incident was “Pre-Gluten-Free”
Charming was already used to me urgently screaming this very phrase on the car
ride home after various occasions when we had been out to local restaurants for
a meal. (On average, before the
gluten-free diet, I had fifteen minutes to get from the restaurant to our home
before an urgent “bathroom opportunity” presented itself.) He grabbed his ice cream and we jostled
through the speedy checkout line and hustled to the car. By the time we pulled into our driveway, my
pulse had calmed down a bit. However, I
don’t think I’ll ever forget that sense of panic at the lack of food in the
grocery store after that snow storm.
Charming and I have always
grown food in our vegetable and herb gardens and preserved that harvest to be
used from one year to the next. We mainly
do this because we believe the food we grow is much healthier than what can be
bought in the store and we enjoy the connection to the land. We also shop at Costco for staples like
toilet paper, milk and Milk Bones for Max the Wonder Dog, who is a “Prepper”. (He has an impressive forty-five pound
stash.) However, there is one thing that
I learned from that particular winter storm grocery-shopping incident…ALWAY S go buy ice cream and potato chips as soon as a “winter storm watch or
warning” is announced!
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| View from my (new) kitchen window. |
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| Max the Wonder Dog with a face full of snow. |
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