Overreactions

A few times a year, in the winter, people of the North East tend to treat a potential snow storm as if they need to go underground for a week or so. I understand that 'you can never be too careful' is something people like to throw around or 'you can never have too many...' But I am here to say that you can both be too careful and there is absolutely a point of excess to the 'can have to many'.
I watched the news over the weekend because, frankly, all that the major network stations were doing was covering the snow storm in Philadelphia. They caught up with a few people exiting the supermarkets with completely filled shopping carts. The one mother said she had to stock up so they had meals. I am sorry, but even though strapping a big shovel to the front of a truck is the most advanced we have gotten to clearing out snow - it is pretty damn effective. So much so that, unless you live in an area that has notoriously bad plowing or just in an area filled with untraveled streets, in a day's (max two days') time, most roads are cleared enough to travel on at regular speed with no risk.

With that in mind, this means you need enough food for somewhere between 3 and 5 meals. I am pretty sure most individuals have enough food in their homes that at any given time when a storm might be creeping in, they don't need to fill an entire shopping cart to cover them for two days. If that is the case I would like to see how they fit a week's worth of food into the cart on a normal basis.

I bring this up because today, after as many snow storms as I have been through, I was one of those people. The difference here being we have to walk to the grocery store. It is not a difficult or terribly far walk, but if sidewalks are icy or not totally plowed - the very cheap cart we purchased which barely is functional on a clear day, would be awful to push around. While we have enough food for another couple days, it will be more like 4 or 5 until our walkways are cleared enough that this trip would no longer be a hassle. Navigating through the supermarket felt like we were looting the store - popular items like bread and milk were noticeably running thin. Every aisle was filled with people and every register was backed into those aisles. People were hurrying up and down the aisles getting everything they 'needed'. In the future I will do my best to be more prepared. It was madness in there.

*Side note: the sale of shovels at each storm is tremendous. I can understand maybe the first storm of the season people realize their shovel from last year isn't going to cut it anymore and need to pick up a new one. But when you are on your 3rd or 4th snow storm of the season and this many people are out buying shovels I have to question how you got out of your driveway the last couple of times it has snowed this season. Maybe we should remind them they are not one-time-use only?