Bread and Milk

We are potentially looking at two back-to-back winter storms here in the tri-state area within the next week. Which means the people of Cincinnati are all doing one of two things:

1. Going to the nearest grocery store to wipe it out of bread and milk; or
2. Commenting on news stories about the impending storm with jokes and criticism of all the folks out there wiping out the bread and milk.

While I do find it ridiculous that even if the forecast is just for 1 inch of snow the stores become madhouses filled with people buying enough food to last through an apocalypse, I myself plan on stopping at the store today and buying, yes, bread and milk. They're staples, folks. They're perishable items. They go fast in my family. We gotta eat. But some people need to criticize and make fun just to make themselves feel better, you know?

So if it makes anyone out there have a better day, go ahead and make a snarky comment about moms like me stopping at Kroger on their way home from work today to buy at least those two things. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Of course, there are other items I consider staples when I'm going to get snowed it. Items such as:

Beer.
This is absolutely essential. If you're ever at my house when I get the call from school that the next day is a snow day, the first sound you'll hear after I get the good news is the whoosh! of carbonation being released from a brown glass bottle.

Powdered-sugar doughnuts.
I blame my sister for this one. During the blizzard of '78 when she found herself out of high-school for weeks, she became the designated walker--she bundled up and daily made the short walk to the convenience store up the road to get a bagful of items that roughly passed for food. Her specialty of the house became broiled doughnuts. I so associate that delicious (and ridiculous) treat with snow storms that I simply can't enjoy a good dose of White Death without them.

The latest People magazine.
Celebrity scandals and pictures of pretty people snapped by intrusive papparazzi are much more fun when you know you should be shovelling your driveway instead.

Bologna.
Call it a white-trash survival instinct--if faced with a truly disastrous storm that wipes out power, closes roads, and all but buries my house in a snow drift, I know that a few pounds of Hillbilly Steak kept in a cooler will ensure that me and mine won't starve.

So long as we have some bread and milk to go with it.

Some of you have already had big winter storms hit this season. What are your snow-day essentials?