When I woke up this morning and my journey to the backyard to let the dogs out confirmed what Pete Delkus had foretold -- that it was really cold -- the plan was to hunker down, put on an extra pot of coffee and blog from home.
Then, I saw it: a fleck of white, a "flake" if you will, flutter past my window to the ground. It was followed by another, then another. Soon, there were thousands swirling in wind gusts and gradually blanketing the ground. It was "snow," Google told me, a type of winter precipitation most common in more northern climes.
I hastily put on a coat and hat and hopped on my bicycle. I hadn't planned on braving this weather on two wheels, particularly since I'd just lost my lone pair of gloves on a DART bus, but I had no choice. I'd seen what you people did to the grocery stores during Cleon, and here I was, with barely enough milk, bread and beer to last the week.
See also: Live Blog: Winter Storm Cleon Is Coming For All Of Us
When I arrived at Albertsons, there were only a handful of cars in the parking lot.
Damn, I muttered. Too late. I braced myself for a scene out of a post-apocalyptic zombie film, complete with empty, ransacked shelves and a hunger-crazed punk driving a shiv into an elderly grandmother over the last jar of gherkins.
Instead, I was greeted by a promotional table piled high with Valentine's-themed cookies.Understandable, I thought. Sugar cookies are empty calories and don't provide the sustenance required for an extended siege. But the produce section was equally well-stocked:
So was the bread aisle:
And the meat department:
See also: What the Empty Shelves at Whole Foods Say about Dallasites and Icemageddon
Most puzzling of all, the beer aisle was pristine:
In the checkout line, a couple of elderly gentlemen waited patiently for their turn.
The experience led me to one inescapable conclusion: THE PEOPLE OF DALLAS ARE FOOLS. It seems that the experience of Cleon, in which stockpiled food proved unnecessary, lulled them into a false sense of security.
Their loss, because while they're building fires in their living room and gnawing on shoe leather, I'll be washing down my fifth peanut butter sandwich with a tall glass of milk. Just as soon as I can figure out how to get this stuff home on my bike.
Send your story tips to the author, Eric Nicholson.
