New Brunswick — Out with the fresh vegetables, in with the stormchips*.
Over the past week, severe thunderstorm warnings have been issued for much of New Brunswick nearly every day. In response, major grocery outlets including Superstores, Sobeys, Walmarts and even Giant Tigers have stopped ordering fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy, and are instead stocking up with basically just stormchips and pop.
“We’re not going too crazy with it — we’re keeping the beef jerky and other stuff that holds up in a storm,” said Tim Nesbit, manager of the Superstore in Miramichi. “And we’ve got candles, lighters, magazines and propane tanks. But after the long, god-awful winter we had, it’s clear that as soon as the weather station mentions a storm of any kind, people panic. They don’t want low-fat milk and berries — they want comfort food. We can’t keep them chips on the shelves, let me tell ya.”
Many farmers’ markets and specialty whole-foods stores have also realized the futility in selling real food to New Brunswickers during these dark times, and have chucked their locally grown foodstuffs in favour of crates of Lay’s and Pepsi.
Donna Englehart, owner of The Corn Crib Natural Foods in Saint John, said all her fruit and vegetables have been rotting on the shelves since about last Friday. “Today I finally said to myself, ‘What are you waiting for, Donna?’ I dropped off all my produce at the homeless shelter and bought some chips from a convenience store. I’m just going to sell them here for about triple the price I paid. Honestly, if you slap an ‘organic’ sticker on it, hippies will pay anything.”
A Manatee reporter braved the rioting, looting crowd at Sobeys on Prospect Street in Fredericton last evening. Fearing for her life, the reporter quickly ducked out, forgetting to pay for a pretty big armload of stormchips. Should anyone from that particular Sobeys read this, The Manatee owes you $7.63 and will pay it back next time this goddamned weather lets up.
*If you don’t know what stormchips (#stormchips) are, you must have been vacationing in Florida from November to April.
Been in Feddy all winter, banks higher than my 6’3″. Would like a reference to stormchips, not ridicule.