12 Bananas

Despite all the horrible stories of families being displaced and losing their homes and cars and businesses during the Calgary Flood of 2013, there was one funny thing that happened…

 

 

The first day of the flood watch and evacuations was also a “flood” day at school. We kept our kids home and had 3 low laying dwellers bunking with us for a night while they assessed the extent of the creeping waters. All morning we were glued to the TV watching mother natures anger unfold and my hubby decided to venture out to get emergency supplies coffee and muffins from Tim Hortons.

As he was walking out the door I said, “hey, can you zip into the grocery store and get some bananas?”

40 minutes later he returned.

He was not smiling.

“I didn’t enjoy that!”

Apparently unbeknown to us, the rest of the city was in end-of-days-panic-survival mode and hundreds of people were flocking to our small local Co-op to stock up on essential supplies like water, bread, eggs, milk and batteries.

Not my husband.

He walked into the packed store and went straight for the fresh produce section (fully stocked and virtually untouched) and picked up 12 bananas, then headed straight for the check outs.

In his pre-coffee haze he found what looked like a relatively short line and waited his turn to pay…for his 12 bananas.

It wasn’t until he was leaving the store that he noticed that the line to pay was actually wrapped around the entire store so far that you couldn’t see the end of it from the check-outs at all and everyone had flats of water!

Thankfully the people in line must have taken pity on this poor man, who was clearly sent to the store by his wife to get bananas, and didn’t give him the thumb and tell him to get to the back of the line (where ever that was).

Survival tips from the Dirty Girl:

1) get bananas

2) Tim Hortons coffee (for the hubby and evacuated guests)

3) muffins for kids

End of list.

 

*As of today, The City of Calgary has maintained a high water quality throughout the flood and NO boil water advisory was ever issued. We continued/continue to drink our tap water giving full credit to the hard working people at the water treatment facilities. Thank you!