First, some minor background so you’ll understand why I was crazy enough to go to Sam’s today:
1) watching hour upon hour of Katrina video of mom’s holding their starving children while TV crews fly by in helicopters and nobody came to help. My wife would look at each other and go “they’re not coming. Nobody is going to help. If this were to happen here, anywhere, you’re on your own.”
2) a few years ago, a flux capacitor or something went out on a transmission line twenty miles out of town, plunging us into darkness in the middle of the day for something like seven or eight hours. The medical clinic closed, all the stores closed (they have electric scanners to read bar codes), you couldn’t pump gas. Oh, and I got hit by a car while crossing a three way intersection in the crosswalk. Silly me! So that painful memory is still alive, the Bad Things that happen if and when the power goes out, and how it can happen on a gorgeous spring day.
So with these things (and others) on my mind, I went to Sam’s.
We’re 200 miles inland (at least). We are where people are told to go if a hurricane hits. So what does our one and only wholesale warehouse have for sale four days ahead of time?
A few tarps. D size batteries. And pop-tarts.
Oh, yeah, there’s other stuff. I bought toilet bowl cleaner (4-pack of Lysol, we needed some). I bought paper plates so I don’t have to wash dishes. I bought wine.
I need “C” batteries for the only battery powered radio I own. They don’t have any. They have a pallet of “D” batteries labeled “Storm relief” but nobody wants D size batteries anymore, everything electronic has been getting smaller for, um, YEARS.
So I went back to the other side of the store and picked up another bottle of wine.
I bought peaches, and spaggeti-os, and moon pies. Moon pies? Yeah, it was lunchtime and I hadn’t eaten, and somehow a case of moon pies wound up in my cart.
Water? Forget it. Not a single bottle of water in the store. I was there on Saturday and they had pallets stacked to the roof. Which means a lot of people have bought water since Saturday. Why was I there Saturday? Cuz soccer practice is starting and we take bottles of water to practice or games. Should have bought more on saturday, apparently.
No flashlights, either; I need to replace the one that was used as a light sabre one too many times and now doesn’t light so much as just sabre. So, I go back and get another bottle of wine. There’s a good chance I’ll be locked in the house with three kids while it’s raining all. weekend. long, so I might as well have something to drink. I bought them some fruit juice, they’ll have to drink the water I bought on Saturday if push comes to shove.
Everywhere was chaos — there were not enough shopping carts. At Sam’s. On a weekday. The lines were eight deep to buy gasoline. Everyone was buying lots of canned goods, milk, DVD’s (maybe they have a battery powered DVD player that takes D batteries? I dunno). I was the only one buying moon pies. I’m such a survivalist.
update: I’m hearing from several other residents that FEMA bought all the water to stock local shelters with. So when if and when we run out, I’m lining up the kids and heading to the nearest shelter. If they have any left.