The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

by monty

Once again the Washington DC region is about to be held hostage by mother nature and her psychotic, wintry badness.  Within the next 24 hours, it is possible that snow may fall here.  The forecasters are predicting anywhere from no snow at all to 6 inches of the powdery death dust.  Armed with that forecast… millions of Virginia, Maryland, and DC residents have all lost their minds and begun preparing for the end of the World.

I made the mistake of going to the grocery store tonight after work to pick up some fresh peppers for some pasta I was going to make.  Big, big mistake.  The store parking lot was absolutely full.  I drive an SUV so I parked on a median.  Inside, it was a mad house.  Thousands of hobbyless soccor moms and hysterical, smelly children were running around buying every item in the store.  They were preparing for the impeding doom that falls with the snow in this area. 

Must have bread.  Must have milk.  Must have toilet paper.

The storm, at worst, won’t drop enough snow to be ankle deep yet people seem to feel terrified that they’ll need provisions to last a nuclear winter.  The region witnessed a record breaking storm just a month ago that dropped over two feet of snow but barely kept people “trapped” in their homes for 24 hours and yet I still saw people looking to rent copies of “Alive” tonight for tips on how to survive by resorting to cannabalism.  (When I was a kid, I thought the word was “Cannonballism”.  I’d like to see that word become valid one day.)  What is wrong with people?

I think it’s possible that I could live for 3 weeks on the random crap I have in my pantry.  Sure it’s not a filet mignon and garlic smashed potatoes, but saltines, onion straws, and soup mix would sustain life if needed.  I’ve heard the arguement that it’s harder if you have kids, but I think a kid could go 24 hours without a Lunchable.  Maybe make a game out of it.  “Hey kids, it’s time for Mystery Meal! where you pull 3 random things from the back of the pantry and that’s your dinner! Yay!”

Could you end up with Chili con Gummy Bear?  Sure, but it’s the end of the world after all… so… perspective.

Meanwhile back at the store, I made the mistake of trying to use a self-checkout line at the store.  It’s really a bold statement about your company’s ability to provide solid customer service when your best idea is to let customers take care of themselves.  The store had four self-checkouts.  I had used one of those little scanner gun things so my stuff didn’t even need to be scanned or rung up… I just need to scan my card and pay.  The first line I got in was cash only.  Cash only.  It’s 2010.  They may as well have had a bartering only line.  No one was using it.  Shocker.  Lane #1 only had one person in line, but she was about 95 years old.  She’d opted to use one of the non-cash only lines to checkout despite  her desire to pay for her groceries in pennies.  Lane #2 had two people in it and between them had enough food items to feed all of southeast Asia.  The little self-checkout counters are only so big, so they were having trouble scanning and bagging their 40,ooo items before they’d create a backup.  Lane #3 was cash only so I was left with the option of Lane #4. 

There was only one lady in line so I thought I’d chosen wisely. 

It took her a good ten minutes to figure out that the scanner wanted to read a barcode and not the product’s name.  Once she had that figured out, I thought it’d soon be my turn.   She scanned the rest of her stuff in short order, but was stymied about how to input her coupons.  She summoned an employee.  The lady spoke no English and the employee spoke no help.  After another ten minutes and a very entertaining miming routine, they got the coupons processed.  When it came time to pay, her credit card(s) were declined. 

Boy, the 6 Gatoraid bottles I was holding in my arms were starting to get heavy.

Not to worry, though… the lady had cash.  Pity, it wasn’t American currency.

She tried to pay for her groceries with money that had pictures of fish, flowers, and Zeus on it.  The machine refused it.  An employee was again summoned.  Then a manager.  Ten more minutes went by while they tried to explain to her why she couldn’t use foreign money, buttons, shells, or coupons for Taco Bell to pay for her groceries.

Finally the manager opted to take her out of the self-checkout and over to the customer service area.  Finally I could check out.  Except I couldn’t.  When the lady attempted to use funny money with the machine, she’d jammed it up and it was now out of service.  Grrr.

It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any snow tomorrow.  There certainly won’t be enough to justify the hysteria.  I feel bad for the cops, EMTs, and fire fighters that have to deal with that stupidity when it takes to the highways in the snow.  During the last snow storm, I got a good laugh when I saw that a guy had rolled his Hummer into a ditch.  I wonder how people from this area would survive if they went to a location where snow was frequent and actually substantial… like Minnesota or Ames, Ames Iowa.

They’d probably buy $1 million worth of groceries, roll their cars, eat the children and burn their houses down.

I think I’ll just play with the dogs in the yard, watch a movie or two, and drink hot chocolate instead. 

Hype, denied.

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