I had just come home from work and had flipped on the TV to watch one of my favorite 
programs when it was interrupted by an address from the President in the Oval Office.  
The details he had to provide were scarce but the few certainties he had to offer were 
horrifying.  A series of attacks on major U.S. cities had been reported.  Biological agents, 
possibly viruses, had been released.  The incubation period was unknown so the day the 
viruses were released was also unknown.  No one had claimed responsibility yet.  
Citizens were encouraged to stay indoors and to travel only when necessary.  Hospitals in 
some cities had already begun to fill up with the dead and dying.  No end in sight, no idea 
of how bad it would get.   This was all I needed to know.  Without even turning off the 
TV I was out the door.

I immediately threw myself into what I was certain would be a nightmare of runaway 
consumerism:  I drove to the grocery store and I knew exactly what I wanted.  First of all, 
I wanted canned food of every variety.  Next, I needed bottled water or canned soda or 
anything drinkable that won’t spoil.  Finally, any other food I can grab that won’t go bad 
and won’t take water to prepare.   

On a normal, non national emergency, non-Armageddon, type of day, I can get to the 
store in five minutes.  This time it probably didn’t take much longer but I was in a panic 
and don’t remember much of the drive.  Much to my surprise, there weren’t many people 
on the road nor were there many cars in the parking lot.  In fact, the store looked like it 
would on any early evening on any day of the work week.   Had people stayed to watch 
the rest of the broadcast?  Was the president still addressing the nation?  Or had people 
heeded his advice to stay indoors?

As I approached the automatic doors I grabbed a shopping cart and from the nearby 
“seasonal” display of gardening implements, I picked out a nice, shiny new shovel with a 
good solid Hickory shaft.  Then I quickly picked up everything I wanted.  4 24-bottle 
packs of the cheapest drinking water.  Probably 50 cans of veggies, soup, and canned 
pasta.  Then I grabbed chips, salsa, crackers, cookies, nuts, and trail mix, breakfast cereal, 
and some other items.

As I was going about my shopping I initially noticed nothing out of the ordinary in my 
fellow consumers.  However, by the time I had made my way to the far side of the store, 
things started to change.  There was more noise and there were far more alert-looking 
fast-moving stock boys than I had ever seen.  I knew that panic had begun to set in but I 
had everything I wanted and could leave.  Then, because I’m such a junky for the stuff, I 
decided I had to have coffee.  Even though it may take more water to prepare than it ever 
could be worth, I had to have it.  I even had a coffee pot with my camping gear in the 
garage so I wouldn’t need to rely on electricity to make my favorite morning brew.
 
I was at the edge of the store on the aisle with the pet food.  I needed to move four aisles 
toward the center where the coffee was.  I thought I would encounter some problems but 
nothing major since I didn’t need to pass by the aisles with canned food or water.  When I 
looked up and began to focus on the linoleum that lay before me, I could see that it was 
going to be worse than I thought.  Stock boys had begun to wheel pallets of canned food 
and bottled water, still shrink-wrapped, into seemingly random spots in the wide aisle 
that ran down the center of the store.

As I approached a pallet that held bottled water I saw only three or four shoppers 
grabbing cases in their arms.  Then, when I was a few paces away, a cry came from 
several aisles away:  “They’re out of water!  Oh my God, they’re out of water!”  I began 
to shout back that there was more water but all I got out was a “No!” that trailed off 
towards the end when someone slammed right into the side of my cart in a mad scramble 
to get to the pallet.  Somehow the cart didn’t overturn – a stroke of luck, maybe. I briefly 
considered that the water already on my cart was in danger but it was in the oft-
overlooked “beneath the cart” zone and I had my shovel.  

In less than 30 seconds, the pallet was empty.  There was a mad stream of people from 
every direction grabbing cases of water with both hands.  Several of the packages had 
burst open and individual bottles were being grabbed for, fought over, and stuffed into 
pockets.  I decided it was best to back off a little to keep out of the way.  Soon, there was 
nothing but a barren wooden pallet and I was able to move on.  In no time at all I had two 
family sized cans of pre-ground coffee tucked into the cart and I was ready to leave.
 
On my way to the front I passed a pallet that had held canned tuna.  I glanced over to see 
an overweight woman in stretch pants with a battered loaf of white bread in one hand as 
she stared blankly at it and cooed to herself “It’s all gone.  I can’t believe it’s all gone.”  
There were several more picked-clean pallets along the way.  The floors were a mess of 
shredded shrink wrap, torn cardboard and abandoned merchandise.

As I made my way to the front of the store I could see people standing anxiously in line 
and eyeing their fellow shoppers warily as they clutched items to their chests.  About a 
third of the registers were closed.  One or two pallets had made their way to the front of 
the store and as people streamed in, finding no more baskets and no room for shopping 
carts, they grabbed as much as they could carry and tried to find a queue to wait in.

I was near an abandoned register when I noticed some people emerging from an office on 
my left.  It was a pair of cops and a cashier.  It was soon apparent that they intended to 
open the register I was right in front of.  I shoved my cart right up to the conveyor belt 
and watched them approach.  The cashier looked like she was someone’s mother.  She 
trembled with fear and was choking back sobs as she walked between the two cops, her 
cash drawer shaking in her hands.  She was staring at the floor as she stepped behind the 
register.

Fumbling with her keys and with buttons on the register, she was sobbing “Oh my dear 
Lord!  Oh my dear . . .”  The officers split up then, one of them pacing slowly off.   The 
one officer that remained got my attention “Sir!” he shouted at me.  “Yes?” I replied. 
“We’re not gonna have any trouble with you, are we?”  “No sir,” I replied.  “This is 
gonna go real smooth.”  The cashier soon had her register in order and was looking at me, 
her mouth trembling.  I leaned forward.  “What’s your name, ma’am?” I asked in the 
calmest voice I could.  Her apron, in the company’s trademark colors, was missing a 
name tag.  “Sh’ Sh’ Shirley.” was her reply.  “Ok, listen, Shirley.  We’re going to get 
through this.  You’re gonna get home all nice and safe.  But right now you have an 
important job to do.  Just do the best, fastest job you can and let the officer here deal with 
the crowd.  Ok?”  She took one deep breath, looked me in the eyes, and whispered “Ok.” 
“Yeah, let me handle ‘em,” the officer said, his hand at the pistol on his hip.

With amazing agility and speed, Shirley began to scan my items.  I hoisted things onto 
the conveyor belt as fast as I could and then moved my cart to the end of the conveyor to 
bag the smaller things and shove the rest back in the cart.   A line of people had queued 
up behind me in the meantime.  At the front of the line was a man clutching a bag of 
charcoal in one hand and trying to balance a case of cola and a few dented cans of potted 
meat in the other.   He was cagey; his glance was darting rapidly from the people around 
him to the officer, to the parking lot outside.

As Shirley scanned the last few items and I shoved them into my cart, the guy in line 
behind me spoke up: “Hey, man, you got all that water!  Why don’cha put some back an’ 
let me have it?”  “No.  I can’t do that.” I replied.  “Come ON man, I gotta have some 
water!”  “Look,” I said, “there’s a lot more water.  This is a huge grocery store and this 
thing is just starting.”  He replied in a more shrill tone this time “But, but, I don’t got it 
now!  I can’t get outta line and shit!”  With that, he dropped his supplies and leaped 
toward me, pinning me against the shopping cart.  I quickly brought the shovel handle 
across my chest, grabbed it in both hands, and pressed it against his throat.  His hands 
were out in front of him, on either side of my body.  He grabbed the wire mesh of the 
shopping cart.  “Hey!” screamed the officer.  His gun was now drawn and pointed at the 
man’s face.  The desperate shopper began to sputter for breath as I continued to put 
pressure on his throat with the shovel handle.  In a few moments, he let go of my cart and 
staggered backwards, gasping for breath.

The man was sitting on the floor, recovering as I paid for my groceries.  “Hey, Shirley,” I 
said as I began to leave “remember, it’s going to be OK. You’re doing a great job.”  She 
replied, more out of habit, than anything.  “Sh’ shure.  Come again.”