On the way into the local Wegmans, a customer related that high winds had knocked out the store’s lights but that backup power was giving way to a full restoration of power from the utility grid. Things looked more or less normal to me upon entering but, while contemplating which configuration of bottled water to buy, just as I made up my mind and was moving from the cart to the shelves, the lights went out (again). Complete black out.

The Poland Spring man who had just finished stocking announced, “Nobody move,” to me and another lady in the beverage aisle. Then he reconsidered, “Oh, well, you might check on the baby, make sure he’s ok. He’s probably scared.” My mental reaction to his directives was “and who are you, when you’re at home? Nobody move; check on your baby!” With my mouth, I told him plainly and without emotion that I was going to my baby now.

Is this ever a post-9/11 world – everyone has been promoted to directors of emergency management. Can’t common sense and a little patience serve in such circumstances?

The really queer thing is that, before the emergency lighting came up, an elderly couple came shuffling down the aisle, brushing against me and the other paused patron. I wondered whether they noticed that the lights were off. “Is it my eyes or did the lights just dim?” Despite the total darkness, they persisted shopping. Maybe their senior center service transport runs a tight schedule and they knew that they had to be out front at pickup time, or ELSE!

The emergency lighting came up before they collided with the Poland Spring man’s empty dolly from which he had been stacking water. The baby was too scared for me to put him down again so the man was nice enough to load a 24 pack of half liter bottles into my carriage, twice as much water as I wanted, but they didn't have what I wanted.