I returned from a 10 day road-trip to forecasts of storm of the decade snow. I woke up to find an e-mail in my mailbox that encouraged me to stock up on "medicines and food" because all hell was going to break loose in the heavens and I wasn't leaving my house for days. CRAP. At this point I've been gone for 10 days and frankly, after looking in the fridge, I'm pretty confident that Jess was living on peanut butter and Diet Coke while I was gone - P.S. thanks Carrie. Not that this is surprising but this did mean that I needed to hit the store.
We have a grocery store on the army post that is divinely American. I mean there are aisles upon aisles of cereals, and pop-tarts and Lean Cuisines. All of the stuff that you can find in the good old US of A. Did I mention that they even have ice cream? Oh my. This may seem silly to you, but after spending hours and hours peeking behind every crevice in a German store because, by god, they must have ice cream only to throw yourself on the floor because they don't and tomorrow is Sunday and the whole world will be closed, and you just wish you were in America for a split second because America would NOT do this to you. Do you know what that feels like? Didn't think so. Anyhow, so I need to hit this store after receiving this e-mail about "medicines and food", but come on now, it's not snowing yet, so I'm thinking this is going to be just a typical grocery shopping experience. Until I get there and HOLY SHIT apparently people were taking this e-mail to heart. There was not one basket or cart left anywhere. The aisles were barren and food was strewn everywhere. The check-out line weaved in and out of all of the freezer sections. My grocery store looked like Katrina had just happened and the looters had moved in. I just stood there pissed. I was tired. I had been traveling for 10 days - I did not have time for this crap. I feel I had no other option but to take what I needed and leave. Now I know this is frowned upon, but you did not see the horror of that line! Perhaps I'm telling you this because I've been in about a zillion churches in the past 2 months and my conscious may be feeling a smidgen guilty.
The kicker of this story? The snow never came.