THE PISTACHIOS WERE THE FIRST TO GO
By Helen Schary Motro
My first mistake was jumping back and forth between the stations, listening to the commentators on Channels 11, 22 and 10 spout wisdom as if their fingers were on the pulse of Rumsfeld at the very least, if not the great white chief himself.
"It's a matter of a few days, weeks at most," they chanted like a Greek chorus on every channel. They gave me no choice but to acknowledge the severity of my dereliction. We had reached this midnight hour - but my storage room aka bomb shelter held nothing but an assortment of bottled water which I had sporadically lugged home when it was on special at the supermarket or the gas station.
If we are stuck in there, what would we have for nourishment? Sadly, I had to admit, only the dusty bottles of wine left over from bygone Passovers. The next morning I hurried out to the market to finally buy the supplies I had so negligently put off.
I whizzed down the aisles, piling my cart high with all the non-perishables in the best example I have ever seen of impulse buying: juices, cookies, crackers, canned peaches, long-life milk, wafers, pistachio nuts, cereal, chocolate. Then into every available crevice of the cart I wedged corn, corn, and more corn.
Read on.