Okay, so I just got back from the store (56 minutes on line). D.C. is close to a full-blown panic about the storm heading our way. There’s an interesting race-to-the-bottom dynamic that overtakes D.C. when it snows. People hie to the supermarket as if a billion Chinese zombies with frickn’ lasers strapped to their heads were about to invade from outer space and nobody knows the correct translation of “Klaatu burada nikto.” When I lived in Adams Morgan (the most New York City-ish D.C. neighborhood) I was amazed at how people would buy not just canned goods and, say, chili-fixings, but gallons and gallons of bottled water. I mean, when was the last time a snowstorm actually caused residents of apartment buildings in a major American city to be trapped inside for weeks at a time?
The problem, however, is that when everyone knows that this is what happens to D.C.ers when it snows, there’s pressure to behave the same way. If you know you might need something for dinner on Sunday and you know the locusts will pick the bones of the Safeway until they are bleached white, then you, too, have to race and get those things before they run out. It’s like in college when there are more guys in the room than slices of pizza available.
I was standing with some folks for the better part of the hour while on line (BTW, native New Yorkers say “on line” not “in line”) and we were all discussing how stupid it was to be putting up with the chaos and hassle, and yet we waited. Everyone was super polite, too. I watched one lady’s cart and saved her place in line while she ran out to the liquor store next door, and vice versa. Whenever a shopper needed to get by to find something on the shelf, we were very accommodating. And when a young man accidentally cut in front of us in line, not knowing that it stretched all the way up the aisle to the deli counter, everyone was very helpful, holding him down while I savagely beat him with a can of chickpeas.