B-LIZZARD BUYING!
We've heard so much about global warming that people can't believe we are having a ”blizzard” in much of the nation.
It's cold in the northeast and central states – and it is also windy and the two together with plenty of white, fluffy snow piling up and making pagodas out of square roofs make what may, technically, be called a ”blizzard”. If it can hold out; last for several days and nights or a week, it can be spoken of years from now with even more authority as having been a true blizzard. You've got a great store of tall stories about tall snow falls in “The Great Blizzard of '83” and others of that era which have been told and with cracker barrel red-hot, wood-fired stoves as background.
In those ancient days the storyteller himself would usually start with complaints about existing weather conditions outside such as: “Hit don't snow no more likkit usta!”
As we have advanced in transportation capabilities our understanding of snow has gone the other way. One inch of the white stuff now causes consternation aplenty among such groups as school board members, plant managers, day care center workers, school principals, working mothers of every type and, well, just about every one, it seems, if you start to list those who might be affected.
The sudden appearance of actual snow also increases the urge to stock up on foodstuffs. A inch of snowfall can trigger a food shopping safari the like of which is seldom seen at any other time. Forest-like displays of bread, milk in any form, cereal in the usual eighty-five flavors and combinations there of are all swept from the shelves of the stores and super-stores causing more trucks to be dispatched from warehouses hundreds of miles away to help clog the already traffic-jammed roads leading to the area where the pre-snow. locust-like scavengers have done their early bird food shopping.
Buying as such a critical time is a real art.
I watched carts waiting in the long lines at the harried checkout person's point, and it was interesting to see that most of the foods purchased were those which involved baking, frying, broiling, basting, grilling or some other procedures which demands electric, gas and other utilities be in working condition during the extreme weather conditions ahead! Carts loaded with fully-prepared, ready-cooked, table-ready treats were few. Many shoppers seem to buy on the promise that since they'll be home anyway they will have extra time to cook things. After loading the bottle and cartons of milk, bread in every form possible, and super-large boxes of dry forms of wheat, oats, corn with attractive additives, they forget to get extra sugar for all of that combination, extra butter or jams and jellies.
Finger foods often in demand during bad weather – are ignored except potato chips which are a prime shelf-clearing item.
The household needs, too, there is some erratic shopping to be seen. It is during the continuing days and nights of the blizzard confinement that you wish you had bought more toilet tissue, some batteries, more soda drinks of any kind and color, razor blades, toothpaste and maybe some dill pickles.
There is a marked need for one of the super-stores to put together Emergency Kits containing food and creature comforts to see a family through such perilous times. Imagine everything you need, assembled by experts and boxed for quick pick-up. One inch of snow would trigger the Emergency Kit sale!
A.L.M. January 23, 2005 [c605wds]
