out of gas
He walked in the door from work last night and said, "Guess what, I can't get any gasoline." He'd stopped at four stations on the way home and everyone was out. What's going on? we wondered. It'd been a week since the blizzard so why would they be out now?
We hopped in his truck on a family expedition to find some gas. His light had just come on so we figured we had at least 20 miles left. My car was running on fumes, too. Just a mile from home we cruised into a station where only half the fuel dispensers were covered up. "Whew! We made it!" we sighed, but as he was getting out to gas up the attendant came over the intercom, "Attention all customers! We are out of gas!" He hopped back in and we brainstormed on where the next closest station was. As we got closer we tried to swallow our panic as we saw lines of cars wrapped around it. It was the same at the next and the next. We turned on the radio to see if the news was explaining what was going on. They were not. We decided we'd better turn towards home before we ran out and had to walk with three boys in the snow. My husband was tense with worry and I wondered: How would I get our two year-old to his morning doctor appointment? How would my husband get to work?
We made it home and made some calls. The station near us said they expected a gas delivery around 10pm. First thing this morning my husband (hero) went out in the cold and filled up both our vehicles. The gas attendant said she was going to be out again by 8am. We'd just made it!
But it's hard to breathe a sigh of relief. The repercussions of the blizzard have struck a chord of panic in me. I've been struggling with fears about what will happen when there's another terrorist attack and I think we've seen a small glimpse of it this week. After the storm the grocery store was almost empty. I rolled the cart down aisles depleted of bread, milk, bananas, meats. We had no mail delivery for a couple of days (gasp!) and we haven't had trash pick-up in two weeks. All minor inconveniences, and livable because we know it won't last forever. But imaginging it on a larger scale is terrifying. It wouldn't take much to cause panic among the masses and a run on food, gas and other supplies. And when you have three young children to worry about, it makes it even more disturbing. We keep extra water and food on hand at all times, but if there was some kind of attack that disrupted the finely tuned system we rely on, how long could we make it in suburbia? There would be mayhem and violence in a battle for survival. It is not a far fetched idea. Not anymore.
Thank goodness we have friends who live in a more secluded area in the mountains with a well as a water supply. Our plan is to head for the hills if something ever goes wrong. That's assuming we have gasoline.
When I hear people screaming that this war is all about oil, I ask them: How do you plan to get to work tomorrow? How do you plan to get your child to the doctor? Or bring your groceries home? How do you think your groceries even get to the store? It wasn't in a hybrid two-door coupe.
Maybe it is about oil. Like it or not, we have to have it. Unless our way of life suddenly changes back into a village system where we can all walk to work and everywhere else we need to go, that's just the way it will be. It will be years before alternate energy sources take up some of the slack. And since we are not allowed to drill for much of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico or Alaska, we will have to hope that all the nutcases in Iran and North Korea and Venezuela will keep their nuttiness to themselves and not screw with us. We can always dream, can't we?
We hopped in his truck on a family expedition to find some gas. His light had just come on so we figured we had at least 20 miles left. My car was running on fumes, too. Just a mile from home we cruised into a station where only half the fuel dispensers were covered up. "Whew! We made it!" we sighed, but as he was getting out to gas up the attendant came over the intercom, "Attention all customers! We are out of gas!" He hopped back in and we brainstormed on where the next closest station was. As we got closer we tried to swallow our panic as we saw lines of cars wrapped around it. It was the same at the next and the next. We turned on the radio to see if the news was explaining what was going on. They were not. We decided we'd better turn towards home before we ran out and had to walk with three boys in the snow. My husband was tense with worry and I wondered: How would I get our two year-old to his morning doctor appointment? How would my husband get to work?
We made it home and made some calls. The station near us said they expected a gas delivery around 10pm. First thing this morning my husband (hero) went out in the cold and filled up both our vehicles. The gas attendant said she was going to be out again by 8am. We'd just made it!
But it's hard to breathe a sigh of relief. The repercussions of the blizzard have struck a chord of panic in me. I've been struggling with fears about what will happen when there's another terrorist attack and I think we've seen a small glimpse of it this week. After the storm the grocery store was almost empty. I rolled the cart down aisles depleted of bread, milk, bananas, meats. We had no mail delivery for a couple of days (gasp!) and we haven't had trash pick-up in two weeks. All minor inconveniences, and livable because we know it won't last forever. But imaginging it on a larger scale is terrifying. It wouldn't take much to cause panic among the masses and a run on food, gas and other supplies. And when you have three young children to worry about, it makes it even more disturbing. We keep extra water and food on hand at all times, but if there was some kind of attack that disrupted the finely tuned system we rely on, how long could we make it in suburbia? There would be mayhem and violence in a battle for survival. It is not a far fetched idea. Not anymore.
Thank goodness we have friends who live in a more secluded area in the mountains with a well as a water supply. Our plan is to head for the hills if something ever goes wrong. That's assuming we have gasoline.
When I hear people screaming that this war is all about oil, I ask them: How do you plan to get to work tomorrow? How do you plan to get your child to the doctor? Or bring your groceries home? How do you think your groceries even get to the store? It wasn't in a hybrid two-door coupe.
Maybe it is about oil. Like it or not, we have to have it. Unless our way of life suddenly changes back into a village system where we can all walk to work and everywhere else we need to go, that's just the way it will be. It will be years before alternate energy sources take up some of the slack. And since we are not allowed to drill for much of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico or Alaska, we will have to hope that all the nutcases in Iran and North Korea and Venezuela will keep their nuttiness to themselves and not screw with us. We can always dream, can't we?
posted by Nicole | 9:04 AM
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