I know the snow will be a feeble half inch which will have degenerated into slush by lunchtime. I live about a mile from three different supermarkets, along main roads. I live a 10-minute walk from a petrol station which has a pretty decent shop. But I can't help it. Snow coming means you stock up.
We're going away on Wednesday for 5 days. Between now and then, the children have lots of events on at school - which means they will be having their meals at school instead of dashing home for a quick food stop (one of the great boons of them being day pupils at a boarding school - wonderful flexibility on the dinner front). There is a bag load of sweet treats on the kitchen counter left over from a 'do' Husband organised last night. We are not short of food. But I can't help myself. Snow coming means you stock up.
So just as I found myself explaining to Mid-Westerners that no, I wasn't crazy, but if the sun comes out, you have to get the children out into the garden, even if it's winter and freezing cold, now in the same way, I find myself explaining to the check-out boy in Morrisons that I can't understand why the place isn't packed with people shopping before the snow comes. He looks at me as if I'm a little deranged, but I tell him: "Snow coming means you stock up".
Photo credit: Daily Telegraph
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AHA! So THAT's why the US friends I have here buy the entire contents of the cash & carry whenever they go shopping (bearing in mind that there is 'snow coming' here for around 6 months of the year).
ReplyDeletePeople in London do the same when the forecast says snow. Because nothing works anymore as soon as some frozen drizzle hits the pavements.
ReplyDeleteThis made me giggle. We will just drive out in the snow - but then I don't think we get as much snow in Toronto as other places. For a freezing rain warning though, that's another story...
ReplyDeleteI am very lazy. I just assume the corner shop will have most of what I need! It takes a lot to close things down in Chicago.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Metropolitan Mum. There only needs to be a slight suggestion that a flake or two of snow might fall, and the good people round here flock in their thousands to the supermarkets and clear the shelves.
ReplyDeleteBut my cupboards are permanently stocked like there is snow coming. When the snow is coming I have to start piling my stock pile on counter tops. I think I'm a throw back and must have stray mid-west genes!
ReplyDeleteIn the same way as everyone will be in the supermarket on Christmas Eve buying food to last them until the New Year, even though we all know, intellectually at least, that the shops will all be open again in two days...
ReplyDeleteWe were the same before the St Jude storm (which didn't even affect us in the end). Stocking up on food and even filling the car up. Having lived through two hurricanes I am not taking any chances!
ReplyDeleteI miss the Midwest! Maybe I'm seeing the snow through rose-tinted glasses now! I do remember it getting old by April - and I remember the frost-bite warnings, but you definitely miss the seasons here in the desert.
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