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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsI walked for an hour this evening in a torrential downpour.
Raging winds, trees overhead convulsing, thunder, lightning, even a tornado warning. What an ordeal... but it was 100% voluntary (to go pick up a 6 pack of beer), and man.... it was a thrill! I felt like a 10 year old, so alive. Now that I've I dried up somewhat, Cheers...
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)It was an existential emergency.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)But I would not walk through a lightning/thunderstorm to get beer. I would not risk my life for beer. (Ok, we were still in town when we went for the beer. It's not like we went through the real blizzard out in the countryside to get beer.)
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)Jenoch
(7,720 posts)but it seems when there is a snowstorm coming, people have the urge to make French toast. The stores are full of people buying milk, eggs, and bread.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)French toast is useless without real maple syrup, so why they leave that of the shopping list is beyond me.
And they're leaving out the 2 most critical of the 3Bs of Blizzard preparedness.
Go figure.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)He works in frozen food currently but has worked every department for Stop & Shop except deli and butcher. He says the things people consistently buy them out of when there's a blizzard coming makes no damn sense.
The beer, wine, milk, eggs, bread, peanut butter, canned goods, pre-pack meat (e.g. hot dogs) and fruit make some sense.
The fact that Connecticuters horde ice cream, frozen dinners OTOH?
And the toilet paper. Most people in CT have toilets that can't flush when the power is out...for what purpose do 200 people in one small area of Metro Hartford need 30-pack Charmin the day before a snow storm?
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)I suppose if you have a well, the pump would not work, but other than that, I can't think of any other reason why a toilet could not be flushed without electricity.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)but also most newer plumbing systems, especially in large buildings, are electric assisted...as are most of the pressurization pumps for muni water.
Between those, they make up a lot of toilets. With the muni water, technically, you can flush the toilets but if everybody did it and the power stayed out for a while like it increasingly has been with these bad storms, you'd either run out of water once the pressure dropped sufficiently to stop pushing water service or the pressure could drop to the point that the main may freeze.
That happened to me in college in DC in the late 1990s. We had a brief outage and the pressure dropped and the water main next to Catholic burst over a long weekend. We all spent 4 days bathing in bottled water.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)I've always lived in areas where the water pressure came from gravity (water towers). Since I lived in Minnesota, all of our water mains are well below the frost line.
I remember filling the bathtubs in our house on 12-31-99 because the public utilities, i.e. water, might crash. What a bunch of b.s. that turned out to be.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)I remember one day walking through a cold, torrential downpour in Madison, Wisconsin when I was a kid back in the late 1950s. I had no purpose but just loved feeling alive. My mom was a fan of the great Johnny Ray and this song was going through my head.
panader0
(25,816 posts)Fess up
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Maybe two sixers, one for each hand. But a case?
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)I just got a six pack.
On edit, they were tall boys though.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Hardly anywhere in most of the Lower 48 would it be necessary to walk a half-hour each way to buy beer.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)an hour later
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if I lived next door in Quebec I could have just walked 5 minutes to the corner store, but that wouldn't have been any fun.