This Was Strange

I went grocery shopping Saturday evening and, as usual, stood for a very long time in the checkout line. The woman in front of me had 2 small children in her buggy and she had dozens and dozens of baby food jars. She also had a LOT of cans of soup, 6 cases of bottled water and 4 GIANT boxes of diapers.

As we were standing there she looked at my buggy, saw the popsicles on the top of the pile and said "those are going to melt when the power goes out."
Excuse me?
"When Hurricane Ike gets here the power is going to go out and those popsicles will melt."
"Ike might not come here, it's way too early to tell" I told her.
She then tells me that she saw the weather channel this morning and that we are going to be "in the cone" soon and that means Ike is coming here. Then she says "this store won't even be here when Ike is over. Nothing will be here and I have to stock up on this stuff for the kids in case the stores where we evacuate too are closed."

I tried to tell her that Ike hasn't gotten into the Gulf yet and that while it is a possibility he'll come here, there's also a possibility that he won't and that it's way too soon to know.

She started shaking her head and telling me that she'd packed their suitcases this morning, made hotel reservations and that they would be leaving tonight at midnight to avoid the evacuation traffic jam.

I asked if she realized that if Ike does come around here that it will be towards the end of next week and that leaving tonight is a little premature. She just kept shaking her head and saying that they were "getting out" tonight.

After she finished and I reached the register the check out woman was a little freaked out. She'd been at work all day and after hearing this other woman she was afraid Ike was suddenly coming at us very fast. I told her that not much has changed since this morning and that it was going to be a few days before we know where he's going.

I have no idea where Ike is going and I'm praying hard that he doesn't come here but if he does I'm leaving too. I'm just going to wait until he's at least in the Gulf and coming my way before I do.

And there's no way a bag of popsicles will last in my house until next weekend so there's no fear of them melting.

Labels: