Saturday Night at the Big Y

When the lights went out in New York during the great northeast blackout of 1965,  I was browsing with a friend at Georg Jensen,  an upscale Madison Avenue shop.   All us shoppers held hands,  and in single file we groped our way out to the dark street.  (See Aunt Miriam, Diva)

And some years later I was in a movie theater when suddenly I smelled smoke.  We were told to evacuate and we all hurried out post-haste.  And more than once at Jane Addams High School in the Bronx where I taught for many years the principal ordered the building evacuated after a bomb threat .  (For more about Jane Addams see The Diary of a Young Girl,  Magazines for the Principal,  The Parking Lot Seniority List,  and Educator of the Year; Remembering Milton)

Then incredibly in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New York,   we were ordered to leave our apartment building after the basement was flooded knocking out the gas and electricity. (See Cooking with Gas)

And recently I was ordered to evacuate a building once again.

We were expecting friends for Sunday brunch in the country and I planned to shop for what I needed on Saturday.  But the weather was glorious that day,  and knowing our local Big Y supermarket is open every night until 10,  I procrastinated my shopping and didn’t leave for the supermarket until after 6.

All started out well – I got a parking space in the Big Y lot near the shopping cart station,  I remembered to bring my shopping list,  and even remembered to bring my reusable bags.  (Unfortunately I did forget an umbrella.)

Once in the store I walked up and down the aisles filling my cart and crossing items off my list.  But just as I got to the checkout line,  I heard the alarm and then the announcement.

“Attention shoppers!   Leave the store immediately!  The fire alarm has sounded and although there is no smoke or evidence of fire,  according to Fire Department protocol the building must be evacuated.”

And so I abandoned my shopping cart,  and with hundreds of my fellow shoppers I headed for the exits . Then once in the parking lot I found myself in a torrential rainstorm –  with no umbrella.

Very wet,  and with none of the groceries I’d gone for,  I drove home.   Later I called the Big Y to ask what had happened,  and was told fortunately it had been a false alarm.  Early the next morning I went back with my shopping list.

Although stressful to some degree,  and certainly inconvenient,   all my evacuations were safe and relatively orderly.

But what nerve to evacuate the Big Y on a Saturday night when I had guests coming for bagels and lox on Sunday morning!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Dana Susan Lehrman
This retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com

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