I cannot believe it is already January 27!  Where has the month gone?  Can you believe that we are this far into the year already?  Just to keep you up-to-date, there are only 332 days until Christmas.  That means that some houses only have another month or so to get their decorations down so they can get ready to put them back up right after Labor Day.  Today is the birthday of Vaclav Kalous, Nicholas Berkeley Mason and Reggie Johnson.  On this day in 1880 Thomas Edison patented the electric incandescent lamp, the Harlem Globetrotters played their first game in 1927 and, in 1977, it was the first broadcast of “Roots” mini-series on ABC-TV.  It is Cavadee in Mauritius, Vietnam Peace Day (do you need to be told where?) and tomorrow will be Australia Day (guess where).

So here is my question.  What is it about the prediction of snow that makes people run to the store to get milk and toilet paper?  Yes they get other items, but those are only because they were there getting milk and toilet paper anyway.  I went to the grocery store today to get stuff we needed.  Not because of the weather forecast, but because we were having the family celebration of the lovely Elaine’s birthday on Saturday, she finally decided on her menu Thursday evening, so I had to shop on Friday.  Yes, I did get milk, but only because I needed it for a recipe I was making. 

So, I park the car and wait for the shuttle to pick me up and take me to the store.  Just kidding.  The parking lot was full and you could sense the tension as people rushed in and out of the store like the storm was going to dump three feet of snow, all at once, any minute now.  Once inside, you generally run into two types of shoppers.  

Type A’s know what they want, where it is and don’t get in their way when they go to get it.  These were the ones who were there mainly for milk and TP and a few other items since they were already there.  Now get out of the way so they can get their stuff and get going.  These are the people who think that all the milk and TP will be gone any time now so they have to push their way through the store to get some before it all disappears.

Type B’s were the ones who walked into the store and then stood there like they had never been there before, or, could not remember why they were there.  You see these people all the time.  They are the ones who shop as if they are the only ones in the store.  They leave their cart wherever they are and wander around getting stuff from the end caps.  Or, they just stand around with their cart and their body blocking the aisle so it is hard to get by.  One time, I went up to a woman and said, “You know, if you turn this cart just a little more, you can block the whole aisle.”  She didn’t say it, but, from the look I got, I knew what she was thinking and it is, in my case at least, a physical impossibility. 

Another thing about Type A people is that they are, generally, obnoxious.  They expect everyone to get out of their way and they do not tolerate most people, but especially other Type A’s.  it is always interesting to see two of those types trying to get to the same section at the same time.  They are not at all subtle about the fact that the other person is in their way and annoying them. 

 

I saw an instance when I was shopping where this was happening.  A woman decided she needed eggs and started to head to the section where the large eggs are stacked.  At the same time a man was heading in the same direction, also to get eggs.  You could see that they both discovered the other’s destination at the same time.  Both walked faster to try and get there first.  They both arrived at the same time and the fronts of their carts came together.  Neither was willing to give way, so both had to reach across the carts to get to the eggs.  This was done with a fair amount of huffing and glaring, but no fisticuffs.  I guess they did not want to waste time and take the chance of getting snowed in.

But I digress …

The question is why milk and toilet paper?  Milk does not increase the use of TP as far as I know.  There is nothing you can bake using both of those ingredients together.  Even more interesting is the fact that those people were all there on Friday.  If snow were forecasted for Wednesday, they would be there again on Tuesday, buying more of the same stuff.  Maybe someday I will go hang out at a store and ask people what they are going to do with the milk and TP.  If I take a clip board and pretend to write their responses, I am sure all of the Type B’s will stop to chat.  The Type A’s will just use their cart to push me out of the way.