The western sky looked ominous as we headed out to run a couple of errands. Brigades of steel gray cumulus clouds seemed to be marching toward us. By the time we headed into the grocery store, clouds like dark mountains towered up and up thousands of feet and gray wisps swirled just above our heads.
"That looks like it's trying to form some rotation," I said to Heidi as the glass doors whooshed behind us. There were not many other shoppers, but we all stopped when we heard the first rumble of thunder, because it sounded awfully close. Heidi and I were in the water aisle when the store went completely dark on the next crack. We could hear rain pounding on the roof as the emergency lighting flickered and then came on.
All the refrigerators and freezers remained dark, though. "I don't know if the registers will be up to check us out," I worried.
"At least the music is back on," Heidi laughed, and she was right; You Had a Bad Day bopped out of the ceiling speakers as we made our way to the front of the store.
There was no one in the self-check area, and every single monitor read Lane Open, so we went ahead and started scanning our groceries.
"Is that open?" an employee called from the service desk incredulously. "Is it really working?
We gave her the thumbs up, and soon everyone in the store was coming our way. We finished bagging our goods, and pushed the cart towards the only unlocked doors. It looked like a typhoon on Gilligan's Island outside, and stranded shoppers were huddled much closer than six feet from each other as they looked out in dismay.
"Let's wait this out in by the doors in Produce," I suggested to Heidi, and so we did, standing by the locked entrance, checking the weather on our phones, Rain!, looking for a bit of a break in the storm.
15 minutes later it was still raining really hard, but I'd had enough of waiting, so we made our way out to the breezeway, and I made a dash through no longer torrential, but merely drenching rain to the car where... the door wouldn't open!
My fob did not unlock the door either by touch or by pressing the button, and so I made another wet run back to where Heidi stood, and we returned to the store to problem solve. Eventually, I remembered that the fob has an emergency key within it, and I went back out into the rain, opened the door, silenced the alarm, and started the car.
Twenty minutes later, we were home and dry again. None the worse for wear, and not even a little bit annoyed, we watched the storm through the windows, eyes relaxed in the muted gray light. The walls and walkways were washed clean; the trees and plants seemed a little battered, but also plumper and greener. It's been a hot, dry summer, and any break is kind of a relief.
"That looks like it's trying to form some rotation," I said to Heidi as the glass doors whooshed behind us. There were not many other shoppers, but we all stopped when we heard the first rumble of thunder, because it sounded awfully close. Heidi and I were in the water aisle when the store went completely dark on the next crack. We could hear rain pounding on the roof as the emergency lighting flickered and then came on.
All the refrigerators and freezers remained dark, though. "I don't know if the registers will be up to check us out," I worried.
"At least the music is back on," Heidi laughed, and she was right; You Had a Bad Day bopped out of the ceiling speakers as we made our way to the front of the store.
There was no one in the self-check area, and every single monitor read Lane Open, so we went ahead and started scanning our groceries.
"Is that open?" an employee called from the service desk incredulously. "Is it really working?
We gave her the thumbs up, and soon everyone in the store was coming our way. We finished bagging our goods, and pushed the cart towards the only unlocked doors. It looked like a typhoon on Gilligan's Island outside, and stranded shoppers were huddled much closer than six feet from each other as they looked out in dismay.
"Let's wait this out in by the doors in Produce," I suggested to Heidi, and so we did, standing by the locked entrance, checking the weather on our phones, Rain!, looking for a bit of a break in the storm.
15 minutes later it was still raining really hard, but I'd had enough of waiting, so we made our way out to the breezeway, and I made a dash through no longer torrential, but merely drenching rain to the car where... the door wouldn't open!
My fob did not unlock the door either by touch or by pressing the button, and so I made another wet run back to where Heidi stood, and we returned to the store to problem solve. Eventually, I remembered that the fob has an emergency key within it, and I went back out into the rain, opened the door, silenced the alarm, and started the car.
Twenty minutes later, we were home and dry again. None the worse for wear, and not even a little bit annoyed, we watched the storm through the windows, eyes relaxed in the muted gray light. The walls and walkways were washed clean; the trees and plants seemed a little battered, but also plumper and greener. It's been a hot, dry summer, and any break is kind of a relief.
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