The Run On Grocery Stores

For some unknown reason, every time a weather psychic offers a forecast with ice and snow over any period of time, people tend to rush out and buy up all the food they can. Don't get me wrong, I have a small supply of shelf stable foods in my cupboards too, but that's the difference.... They're already in my cupboard. Is it a generational thing?

My parents always had something to eat in the house no matter how long it had been since their last grocery trip. I know this because as a kid, when I'd say "There's nothing to eat in this house" my mother would invite me into the pantry to show me all the wares. Often, it was canned goods and stuff you had to cook. Could it be that this is just a trait that stuck with me into my life? I remember my grandma telling me the same thing.

Maybe it's the military town aspect of it. I've noticed while hanging out at my buddies houses, deep freezes aren't nearly as popular here as they are in the smaller towns I'm from. The kind of place where you have to drive thirty-five miles to get groceries... so when you go grocery shopping, you buy for the next five or six weeks. Best I can logically figure is, you only get "X" amount of room to move to the next post, so you pretty much travel as light as possible. Given the shear amount of used furniture that's always for sale on Marketplace, I'd bet it's probably a military thing.

Just like when I was a kid, the food stores I have in the pantry are similar to what my parents had. It's nothing you would elect to eat of your own volition... but in a pinch when you don't have anything else and can't run out to grab something, it'll do. Dry and canned beans, soups, spam, rice... It all keeps a long time, obviously not forever, so you do eventually have to just suck it up and eat it before it goes bad.

Look at it the other way too... Yes, there's winter weather in the forecast, but all the same, odds are it sticks around for a few days then bleeds back to normal. It'll be too hot for comfort in a week or two, and you don't want to be the person stuck with a bunch of food that you bought in a panic and ultimately throws most of it away because you don't want to eat it.