*Tried to post this when it actually happened, but my Google smart phone hates me with a vengeance...
At Walmart currently, and a lingering storm from last night has knocked out the power. We have enough from the backup generator to light a pair of flood lights every hundred feet or so, but all registers are off line. The entire population of the store has completed their shopping,mostly, and converged on the checkstands. For a brief moment, power returns, and cheers erupt from the lines of patrons, now backed up all the way to the dairy cases and restrooms in the back of the store. But, the relief is short-lived and the cheers quickly turn to groans as the power disappears again. Children are cranky, parents are prematurely opening snack purchases to quench the fussing from both their children and their own growling stomachs (it IS lunch time afterall...), and others are losing patience and abandoning their carts altogether. It's now been half an hour. Every now and again you can see
the blur of blue whiz past you as am employ rushes by, trying to avoid the same questions for the 75th time: "When is the power coming back on?" "Why don't you have a back up generator?" "Why can't I check out?" "Does this mean it's all free?" People are so dumb. You've got to love Walmart, central-Texas weather, and a dam good excuse to not be at work.=)
*total trip wound up being two hours, after 25 minutes of shopping...fun, fun!
