How Surreal

Today was odd. I had to go out and try to find a store/pharmacy to grab what I could. Darrell has another infection, therefore we needed his antibiotics. So I went one direction and changed my mind because I saw the line for the next road - they must not have had power. I went to see if maybe Walmart or Kroger was open, and low and behold, it looked like Kroger was open, along with its pharmacy. The picture above was taken by my dad down in the Pearland area today. This is much what it looked like where I was at today. All the people you see in the background are waiting to get into the store.

So, I went and parked and got in line. Apparently I had gotten there at 1:30 when they were going to be open from 2pm-6pm. But they went ahead and started to let people in. They would only let a few people in at a time. About 50 to start out with and then 5 at a time once people started checking out. I think that they were actually counting the people leaving! The manager said that they did this so that they were not overwhelmed. I think that they did this so that they were not looted, and so that there was not an out of control mob at the store.

During this whole experience it was just strange. You hear about situations like this, and you can not imagine what it is truly like. I was walking around the store while waiting for the last 10 pills they had - thankfully! - watching people. Most of them did not have power yet. Everyone was trying to figure out what we needed to have until the food trucks came. All of the refrigerated and frozen items had been mostly thrown out by the time they had opened the store, because they could not guarantee that it was good, because the power had been out for at least 24 hours. I knew that I was participating in all of this, but it also felt like I was looking in from the outside. It was surreal.

I am glad that we filled both cars with gas on Thursday night. By the time that I left the store, the gas station had a line of at least 15 or more at each pump. There were even three police cars there, some watching, and some out talking to some of the people getting gas. I wonder if they were there to help people be more moderate about what they were getting. But the thing is that there are a lot of people who are still trying to run their generators, and I do not think that a lot of people really thought that they may be out of power for 1-4 weeks, depending on where they live.

I do not know why we have power, but I am grateful that we live in one of the little pocket neighborhoods that have it now. We really have come through this relatively unscathed. Perhaps this is why I am feeling the way I do.

How Surreal.