Gigi pushes past her, dragging me along, and rolls her eyes at the woman.
“Good for you. I’m sure you’ll be employee of the month. Now lock that door and let’s get inside. I have to tell you some things and you’re going to want to hear them.”
Shelly Anne grumbles but locks back up and follows us around to the cash out area where we’ll be out of sight from the glass doors. Gigi digs out a stack of cash and thrusts it at her, causing Shelly Anne's mouth to gape open.
“Listen, things might be calm right now but I guarantee you that won’t last. This store is going to be mobbed either later tonight or tomorrow once people get over the shock of what happened. All the shelves will be empty in the next twenty-four hours and most people aren’t going to stand around waiting for a cashier to ring them up.”
The woman scoffs but keeps a tight hold on the stack of cash Gigi had handed her.
“You’re talking about looting? Really, Elenor? Maybe in the bigger cities but that kind of thing wouldn’t happen here.”
Gigi gets right in her face. “They said on the radio that all the coastlines will be wiped out. That there will be earthquakes and crazy weather. They said that volcanoes will erupt. That all means no resupply of stock.” She makes a frustrated noise. “Seriously, Shelly Anne! Think about how crazy everyone went when we had the COVID shutdown. And that was just all of us staying home in our pajamas. This will be a hundred times worse because people will know that no more food will be shipped in!”
Shelly Anne flinches back as she absorbs the nightmare scenario Gigi just laid out and then looks down at the money in her now shaking hand. Her voice is almost a whisper when she asks, “W-what do we do?”
Gigi rubs a comforting hand down her arm.
“To start? We get as much food as we can. There’s five thousand dollars right there, and I plan on spending every dime of it. You have a choice now. You can ring us up and put that money in the cash register to have it stolen when the looting starts…or…you can put it in your purse, grab a cart and start shopping for your own family.”
I watch a myriad of emotions cross the woman’s face until it finally firms up and her eyes harden.
“Come with me. Those carts won’t be big enough.”
Gigi shoots me a wink and we follow behind Shelly Anne to the back of the store where she points at large orange flatbed carts that the store uses to move large electronics and appliances. Gigi and I take one each as Shelly Anne tries to make a call on her cell phone. We leave her there and push our carts to the first food aisle in the grocery section of the huge superstore. It feels kind of like we’re locusts as we pull boxes and cardboard flats of items from the shelves and stack them on the carts. Gigi makes a sound of annoyance at items that have been set on shelves instead of left in flats so she leaves her cart as I keep pulling things and races away. I’ve only made it a few more feet down the aisle when she comes back carrying as many empty boxes as she can hold and kicking two in front of her across the floor.
We go through every aisle, pulling bags of rice, pasta, dried grains, and flour. Flats of canned vegetables, meats, and soups stack up until the carts are almost too heavy to push so we leave them by the front of the store and go back and get empty ones to fill. At one point, when I’m filling a box with multi-packs of chocolate bars and bags of candy, a borderline hysterical laugh escapes from me and echoes through the empty store. This is insane! None of this feels real in any way and I can’t help but think I’m going to wake up any minute in my bed and tell the guys about the crazy dream I had.
Once our second set of carts are as full as we can make them, we pass Shelly Anne filling her own flatbed and hit the fresh food department. Loading family-size trays of chicken, pork chops, beef, and anything else we can get our hands on into normal shopping carts. We skip the bakery and go to the produce section where we take as many bags of potatoes, onions, and carrots aswe can. Squash, peppers, and sweet potatoes fill reusable bags that we grabbed from one of the cash-out stations and those carts are left with the rest of the full ones. I take an empty cart to the dairy section even though Gigi tells me not to bother with that. I hit her with an offended look and say one word that has her nodding in agreement,
“Cheese, Gigi. Cheese!”
Life without cheese isn’t a life worth living in my opinion, so I grab as many of the harder types like cheddar, parmesan, and Swiss that should keep as long as they stay slightly cool. Even if they end up molding on the outside, you can just cut those parts off and eat the rest.
I start worrying that we won’t have room for anything else with all we gathered but Gigi shoves another stack of empty carts my way and a pile of bags.
“Go to the pharmacy and toiletries section. Get all the vitamins, supplements, first aid, and medicines you can. Grab protein powders and then bathroom stuff. I’m going to the garden center and then the camping section.”
I almost crash into Shelly Anne and her full cart in the feminine hygiene aisle. She shoots a frown at me as I start yanking mega boxes of tampons from the shelf.
“Stop. A few of those are fine, but they take up a lot of space. Take these instead.” She dumps a bunch of small boxes into my cart. “Thank the Lord, I have boys and we won’t need to worry about these.”
I pick up one of the small boxes and see that they are Diva cups. Smart! The small silicone, reusable cups make me a little squeamish but they won’t run out like tampons will. I still add a few more boxes anyway, as well as some bags of pads.
Shelly Anne leaves her cart and goes to a different aisle but is back quickly with an armful of boxes and dumps half into my cart and half into hers. My face goes red when I see that they’remega packs of condoms but I just nod my thanks to her. She studies my face for a few seconds before groaning and snapping at me, “Come with me!”
I follow her with my cart to the pharmacy counter and when she waves me to stay put, I pack the loose boxes in my cart into the shopping bags while I wait. The sound of a gate being rolled up has me turning to see Shelly Anne behind the pharmacist’s counter. She holds out her hand to me across from it.
“Give me a few of those bags.”
I pass her a bunch and she disappears into the shelves so I start dumping over-the-counter pain killers and cold and flu meds into bags. I’m just about to go to the toiletries aisle when she comes back loaded down with five of the bulging bags and pushes them over the counter at me.
“Antibiotics, blood pressure meds, stronger pain killers, birth control, and a bunch of other stuff. That’s all I can give you from back here.”
My eyes go wide and I nod eagerly. “Thank you so much! We really appreciate all of this, ma’am.”
She waves me off and starts filling bags for herself, so I move on and start bagging up toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant, razors, soap, and hair care items. First aid, power bars, and protein powder jars fill the next cart and then I’m on to vitamins. I load up on my biggest addiction, every lip balm flavor and brand from the display. Want to see me lose my mind? Take my Chapstick away! My last cart is overflowing, so I work on pushing all four to the front of the store where I meet back up with Gigi.
Her carts are full of gardening supplies, camping items, candles, and boxes of masks. There’s drywalling and painter's masks as well as the thin ones everyone had to wear for a few years during Covid. Also flats of mason jars and lids balancing on two big boxes that contain pressure cookers in one cart.
