Panic in Aisle 10

[plumtreeblossom]

Yesterday beowabbit and I pulled our rented Zipcar into Stop-n-Shop in Quincy for a routine food shopping trip planned more than a week ago. We had trouble locating a shopping cart anywhere. "Everyone is leaving them on aisle 10," a passerby told us. That didn't mean anything to me. We eventually found a cart and went about our shopping.

Working our way through the aisles, we saw that the passerby had been right -- aisle 10 was full of empty carts, abandoned there where the bottled water had been. I still didn't get why people were leaving carts there and beowabbit had to explain. People were taking carts to aisle 10, seeing that the bottled water was gone, then abandoning their empty carts there and leaving the store. Employees were gathering up all the carts.

Think about what kind of sheer panic would make a person ditch a cart and run like that. I'm sure the vast majority of them, under normal circumstances, would have been courteous enough return their cart to the place from whence it came if the product they wanted was out of stock. But yesterday, no. I didn't actually see anyone in the act of abandoning their cart in aisle 10, but I can just picture it. The frantic wrangling of a cart. The urgent dash to aisle 10. The dismayed horror of the sight of the empty shelves. "OH SWEET MOTHER OF CHRIST, NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Abandoning the empty cart, running at full sprint back to the car, "THE WATER IS GONE!! GET OUT OF MY WAAAAAAAY!!!" Racing from store to store, abandoning carts and all dignity.

Maybe it didn't go down that way. But that's the way I'm picturing it in my head as I sip refreshing, chilled water that I boiled myself. It came bountifully out of my tap, free of charge (I rent and it's included); I put it in a kettle on the stove, boiled it, and chilled it. Mmmmmm, wawa.

I also returned our shopping cart to it's proper place when we finished shopping.

Comments

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

The scenario was more likely:

OH, NO!!!! THEY'RE OUT OF WATER! Quick! run to another store before they run out too!!

or

OH, NO!! THEY'RE OUT OF WATER! How dare they! Just to show them, I'm not buying anything from this stinkin' market, let them put away their own stupid cart. I'm outta here, and taking my water business elsewhere. That will show them!

or

I heard they were going to have water. Some people got some. I've been waiting in Aisle 10. Now they're out. I am blocked in the aisle with my cart..can't maneuver my cart in or out of the aisle. Nothing else for me to do but to leave and grab an abandoned cart at the edge of the aisle to continue shopping (or else just leave, since there was nothing other than water I wanted to buy).

In any way, scenarios are fun to conjecture about.

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the bottled-water-frenzy. I have plenty of drinkable water at home that I boiled myself. Lots of it in the fridge and plenty more in a stockpot on the stove.

If the electricity had been out too it would have been a genuine crisis. But not if we can easily boil our water. And the Boston Globe article today just made me laugh: "oh noes...we couldn't get our lattes from Starbucks!"

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh I know. I've been just boiling tap water myself for our household. It's free, there's nothing to recycle or end up in a landfill, and it tastes just like it always does.

I think a lot of people deep down enjoy a good panic. I remember in the lead-up to Y2K, people were stockpiling EVERYTHING and barricading themselves in their houses. When Y2K came and nothing happened, some of them were pissed off!

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

OFFS.

'Civilization' is apparently a thin veneer. ;-/

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

Sounds like I'm missing all the fun

[kalliejenn2.livejournal.com]

HA!

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

People can be such asses! They had a line of cars over two miles long in one of the towns where they were giving out free water. Imagine! Driving the car out there, sitting for two hours only to find out that they ran out of water. Burning all that gas, wasting all that time, to get something for free that you already have for free at home.
I guess almost nobody knows how to boil water any more. I knew that most people had forgotten how to cook, what with the fast food business and everybody working the fifty hour week, but gee! Water!
Yes, I boiled a dutch oven full, and am adding bleach to the dishwashing water (I dont have a dishwasher).
What would those people do if we had a REAL emergency? Yikes! I dont even want to think about it.....

[kencf0618.livejournal.com]

How odd. I've never heard of such behavior.

Perhaps they were terrorists shopping for heavy water...?

[bagelfather.livejournal.com]

No water on the shelves? What will we drink? If only our homes had some sort of spigot that we could turn and have water flow into a container or maybe a basin. Better yet if we were lucky there would be one of these spigots outside that the hot sexy half naked gardener would refuse to use, but instead wanted to use the indoor spigot to get water causing sexy music to play as he undressed.