New Englanders are Sissies

So I'm going to start with a general rant...New Englanders are a bunch of sissies when it comes to snow. I have noticed this since I first moved out here. They go into an absolute panic because it "might" snow. They see two flakes and all the businesses shut down, and half the time they don't even wait to see flakes. They proved my point in droves today. Yes I realize we are expecting a snow storm late tonight and tomorrow. It might actually even be significant, but we don't know. I have yet to see a weather prediction in this area that was even slightly accurate. However based on the crowds at the stores and the way people were acting you would think that the zombiepocalypse was happening.

I went to do some very basic shopping. I ran to Walmart to get some new bedding for the guest room as Ryan's parents are coming to town in a few days and a few other new house basics.

Or not so basic, I had to clean them out on blank electrical socket covers because our house has more electrical outlets than I have ever seen before. No kidding it has at least 4 sets per room no matter how small the room, and even that was apparently not enough for the previous owner as they had splitters on many of them so they could plug in even more things. Now this wouldn't be a huge issue except we have a toddler, and a sneaky too smart for his own good one at that. We got a million of those little baby proofing plugs and put them in the baby zones. Then Than promptly after we got here figured out how to remove them and now we keep finding him with them in his mouth. Ryan loves to quote some comedian who says, "Right after my son turned 1 he started running around looking for death." That is certainly a good description of Than. So we plan to blank over many of these plugs that we aren't using.

Anyway Walmart was a zoo. It was absolutely nuts the number of people there and it was still pretty darn early in the morning, but as it is the last weekend before Christmas I wasn't too surprised...hence the early in the morning part. But where it got really insane was at the grocery store near our house. Now I go there on Saturdays as a regular thing, I go shopping and run errands while Ryan watches Than. It is occasionally a little busy but if you go earlier in the day it is really not bad at all. Today the entire parking lot was full to bursting. The parking lots near by were also full, never a good sign. Inside people were stocking up and loading up in droves. They were acting like they were going to be snowed in for the rest of winter, not the weekend at worst. However it was a strange combination of acting like they would be snow bound for the next few weeks and acting like they had never seen snow before ever. The number of people getting things like scrapers for your car and flimsy snow shovels was bizarre...why wouldn't you have that stuff already? My only concession to the storm was I bought a little ice melt, but that was on the list before I knew a storm was coming. The grocery store had every register open and still the lines were going back into the aisles. All of this would be frustrating and bizarre as a general rule, but have I mentioned lately that large crowds of people really freak me out! Especially when they are all shoving and have no concept of personal space. I was getting very twitchy after a while. I felt like shouting, "I just want to get my normal groceries!" If Ryan had been there I would have been hanging on to him for dear life and half hiding behind him like I usual do if I am forced to be around large crowds. I get home and I am all anxious and twitchy from the people overload and Ryan just says, "Ohhh your phobias are so cute."

I can't wait to see if we get more than about 4 inches of snow and if it will actually stick around for more than 2 days. We shall see.