Empty shelves. In case you don’t know it, our food supply is very fragile. Deliveries to your local supermarket can stop at anytime for more reasons than you can imagine. Supermarkets don’t carry too much inventory either. They depend on deliveries to keep the shelves stocked with all of the pretty bows and peppermint sticks that we Americans demand.
The owners of the Market Basket supermarket chain in my area are having some sort of family argument. Because of that the employees have walked out. Market Basket is a good size company with 71 locations. I read that it’s losing $80Million a week.
Did you ever think that your supermarket would dry up like a puddle on summer pavement? Once the deliveries ceased it took maybe 2-3 days for the supermarket to get cleared out. The shelves look like this in spite of the fact that there are still many other places to buy food.
Labor disputes, the whims of Capitalism, storms, spike in gas prices, earthquakes, devaluation of the $US, war, power failures, plague, floods, you name it.
Around here we have two other supermarkets we can frequent. They both suck though. The prices at Stop and Shop and Shaws seem much higher to me. It seems like everything costs a dollar more than at Market Basket. For me it sucks because I’m spending probably $20-30 more a week because I have to go to either Stop and Suck Me Dry or Shaws Paws In My Pockets. 
I’m lucky though I still get to choose and see shelves stocked with pop guns, pampoogas, pantookas, and drums checkerboards, bizilbigs, popcorn, and plums. Granted I have to pay a bit more. My pain just reminds me how spoiled and lucky I am due to our wonderful supply chain. But it’s a fragile thing with lots of moving parts that need to inter-mesh. How about if you’re not as lucky as the folks in this area that have two fall back supermarkets, albeit sucky ones? How about if your next closest place to stock up is 20, 30 or 50 miles away? How about if there is no other place to stock up?
Meat, vegetables, toilet paper, oil, soap, toothpaste, salt, coffee, flour, sugar, water, eggs, bread, milk, batteries, chips and HoHos ain’t like electricity where you can take for granted that when you flick the switch that the lights are going to come on. Electricity ain’t like electricity either.
Lesson to be learned, plan accordingly. I try to keep enough extra of the essentials so if I had to hole up here for a spell I’d be okay. You can find the lists out there on the Internets. It’s a good idea to keep a few hundred dollars in small bills around too. And tell me where you have it hidden.
GET OUTSIDE EVERYDAY!
It’s summer time. It’s always summer somewhere so here’s a shot of me wakeboarding at sunset.
Abraham's Blog 