I’m not sure anyone else does, though.

Almost no businesses have boarded up. Probably less than one in ten of the houses within a mile of me have done so. Saw one neighbor evac’ing with their baby.

This is why we didn’t let the government evac an elderly sick family member. Nice of the GRB. “Aaaaaah! Liability, NOOOOOOOOO!” How come anytime the city does someone wrong, they claim governmental immunity from tort, but when they’re denying the chance to do someone right, they scream liability?

Last minute supply run. I’ve never seen a store with shelves so empty as my neighborhood Kroger’s. Well, I have once, but it was a new store and I was among the people stocking it for the first time. I’d have taken pics, but this crappy Sony won’t allow me to shut off the flash, and that would have been conspicuous. (Camera phone? Hey, I work for the city, thank you. How can I afford a camera phone….after my four computers, that is. Um. Nevermind….) Maybe I was reading more into it than was there, but it seemed to me that people were digging into that southern politeness — that is, with everyone tense and a few nerves fraying, people were being more polite than ever. Lots of “excuse me” and “thank you” in the overcrowded aisles this morning. I vastly prefer this to folks going all New York City on each other. Yesterday, my big aggravation was people who stood in the way so you couldn’t get past them, at the checkout, or were checking out on one machine and put their stuff on mine so it would screw up the weight sensor. And ignore me when I asked if those were their items. Three times. (The cashier finally came over, moved them, and fussed at her a bit.)

Today, I saw a lady with just a few too many items in the self-checkout lane, and a pair of idiots having no business trying to operate immensely complicated high tech equipment like a simple checkout. They were there when I got in line, screwing up despite constant help from the cashier; they were there when I left. Long stretches where they just stared and the machine and turned an item over in their hands. I could see them thinking, “Will this machine bite me if try to scan my purchase? Um, maybe I should look at it for a few more minutes.” But I reserve real contempt for the guy who tried to very blatantly cut in line, then play stupid when the lady with too many items in her basket firmly sent him to the back of the line. Right, mister. I’m sure your two bags of bread were just that important.

Meaning nothing, perhaps?: Tech-impaired idiots: black. Rude & deaf roadblocks: Mexican. Counting-impaired lady: black. Line-breaker: blue-collar, cornbread WASP. Just my observation…