Hurricane Chaos

A Hurricane is Approaching

Watching people scramble and prepare for an impending hurricane is an entire lesson on etiquette. Why, you ask? I’ll tell you why.

Last week, it was announced that hurricane Milton would hit Florida. The news spread to residents and visitors to prepare for Milton’s arrival. Panic took over. People flocked to purchase enough water and non-perishable groceries for the possibility of power outages. Here’s my recount of what I encountered.

Supermarket Scramble

While at the supermarket, I noticed many carts stacked to the top with non-perishable items and gallons of water. I’m not judging, I didn’t expect less. But to have one cart full of water, another cart of non-perishable food, and a third cart full of toilet paper borders on exaggeration. Okay, maybe they have a large family and needed all these items. I’ll give them that.

But how about the pushing and shoving to grab the last can of soup or even taking it out of another shopper’s hand? The woman who snatched the can continued walking as if nothing happened. That poor lady was just as shocked as I was. She stared at the woman who snatched the can from her, looked at another shopper, and said, “UNBELIEVABLE.” The man with her, possibly her husband, asked if she wanted him to get it back. The lady said, “Don’t worry about it. She probably needs it more than I do.” Such a proper woman.

Pumping for Fuel

It doesn’t end in the supermarket. It happened at the gasoline station, too. I waited in line to fill my car’s tank when another shocking situation ensued. A woman had already finished pumping. She got inside her car, sat by the pump, and didn’t move her car. A few people asked her to move her car since she had already used the pump so others could pump gas, too. The woman refused to move. According to her, she was holding the pump for her sister. Her sister was on her way to pump gas in her vehicle also, but had not arrived yet. People did not take her response lightly, and a slew of words resonated around, prompting the woman to move her car immediately. It was a scary situation since some people were talking about pushing her car away from the pump using theirs. How insensitive of her to see a line of people waiting to use the pump and decide to hold a spot for her sister!

Hardware Store Hoarder

Is that all you might ask? Unfortunately, no. I stopped at Lowe’s for some bags to fill with sand, and here we go again with the inconsiderate type who only think about themselves hoarding the batteries as if there were no tomorrow. Why, why a cart full of batteries? I honestly thought he was stocking up to resell them. I can’t believe someone would need so many batteries. Hey mister, you do know batteries have an expiration date, right? They go bad too. Or maybe he did not know it.

A Spark of Generosity

Not all was bad, though. My last stop was to fill the bags with sand. But, with all the chaos of running around preparing myself, I forgot to bring a shovel. I was about to leave when a gentleman approached me and asked if I needed sand. I said yes, but had to go home to get the shovel.

“No need to, ma’am. I have one right here. I can help you with that,” he responded and grabbed my bags. Not only did he fill them, he placed them in my car’s trunk as well.

After encountering the above situations, I was not expecting any generosity from anyone. But I was wrong. There are still some nice people in this world. His generosity instilled my faith in humankind. It was the perfect ending to a perfectly chaotic day.

Originally published at https://www.newsbreak.com.