We needs your thoughts and prayers down here. We really do. We’re facing a unprecedented weather related tragedy. Now is the time to prepare.
I’ve lived in the South my entire life, presently in Atlanta, Georgia. The current forecast calls for around 6 inches of snow Sunday night into Monday, followed by freezing rain in the city. The region is expecting frozen precipitation in amounts we haven’t seen in years.
I'm terrified.
Have you ever been down here during a "winter storm"? It elicits some of the most desperate, survival behavior imaginable. Think of the most heart-rending photo-essays you’ve seen in National Geographic or elsewhere. It’s the same, only fatter.
Millions of people descend on their neighborhood grocery stores in an attempt to secure the necessities of life. Accustomed as we are to subsistence living and barely life-sustaining nutrition, there will be desperate battles for bread, milk, Pop Tarts, and Oreo Cookies. People always on the very edge of starvation, who literally could not survive longer than, say, a month without eating, will engage in pitched battles for the last remaining frozen pizzas and Cocoa Pebbles. We call this the "Milk and Bread Phenomenon."
If you’ve ever lived here, you know it well. All that is required to trigger this primitive response is a single meteorologist uttering the word "snow." Upon hearing this code, there is an audible clicking of mental gears followed by a low, but growing, chant of "milk and bread . . . milk and bread. . ." As word passes, this chant transforms into a roar as thousands, nay, millions of Southern people begin that ancient journey to Publix.
And road travel? Here the survival instinct so evident in the Milk and Bread Phenomenon is paradoxically absent. People who have never driven in snow or ice in their lives, who have demonstrated a shocking inability to safely conduct themselves around town in the rain or even bright sunshine, decide they should have no difficulty driving a four-ton SUV with a soccer team of eight year olds, two dogs, and an iPhone to their mani-pedi appointments. The results are devastating. Thousands of people stranded ¼ mile from home. Desperate scenes for survival play out once again as suburban moms and dads battle each other the next available AAA truck and taxi. Even now it makes me tearful.
So, please, if you pray, pray for us. At the very least, send up a positive thought or two as we prepare for this unprecedented natural tragedy.
Update: It's been correctly pointed out to me that I should add beer and toilet paper to the list. That's quite right. Other suggestions include sweet tea (I assumed that was understood), chocolate, and vodka.