I left the house in a panic, hopped in the car and sped across town. No way was I going to be left behind. No way was I going to go hungry, left to buy groceries on the black market from some shady food dealer.
If the president said we needed a picture ID to buy groceries, then by God, I was going to see if the supermarkets were handing out special IDs. I wasn’t going to rely on my drivers license, or work ID to eat. It was early, I figured I could beat the crowd, and headed straight for Stop & Shop.
I saw the first sign of trouble a half-mile from the store. It was the joggers, loads of them. But these were no regular joggers, they were running in work clothes. Guys in dress pants and button down shirts, gals in skirts. All racing toward the supermarket. The word was out, we needed grocery IDs.
Overhead a chopper hovered. I thought maybe it was a news chopper. I was wrong. I squinted against the hazy sky and saw one of those big military choppers. There were figures popping out of the openings on the sides and slithering down ropes toward the ground.
This wasn’t good. I turned the corner and saw how not good. Traffic was jammed up as far as the eye could see, the roads around the store choked with cars jockeying to squeeze into the big parking lot. Traffic stopped, the roads gridlocked. People started abandoning their cars, racing out of them and leaving the doors open, and running on foot toward the store.
No way was I going to be left behind to go hungry. I slapped my car in park and took off, racing with the growing crowd.
“This is insane,” I said to a guy running alongside me.
“No kidding, but if this grocery ID is something the Feds are in charge of we’re going have big issues. We got three-hundred million people in the country. If we’re all gonna need IDs, half of us could starve to death before we get ‘em. You see how long it takes at the DMV when there’s just a few people in there?”
“Good point,” I said.
He tried to pull away from me. I caught up to him, and passed him. He cursed me as I put some distance between us. It was clear that it was now every man for himself. Same for the women and children.
The closer I got to the entrance, the crazier it got. Car horns blared, people yelled, and soldiers in camo tried desperately to bring order to the ID-starved mob. It felt like a ’70’s disaster movie, except the cars were smaller, no one had a mustache, and I didn’t see anyone that looked like Ernest Borgnine in charge.
I joined the throng pushing and trying to squeeze into the doors of the store. Someone punched me in the ribs. My hair was pulled from behind. It made Black Friday at Walmart look like a book club meeting.
I managed to get inside, my ribs aching and my head ringing. We were fifty deep at the courtesy counter, all yelling questions at the poor woman.
“Is there a special grocery ID? Is there a charge for it?”
“Can I use it at other supermarkets?”
“What if I don’t like my picture?”
“Do you have any more of the burgers on special this week, the ones in the flyer?”
I had enough and turned to try and get away from the crowd. I was going upstream, squeezing past more shouting people. They were desperate for information.
“Did you get a card?”
“How much does it cost?”
“Hey, didn’t we go to high school together?”
I broke free, and found a little space. A young National Guardsman moved in front of me as I tried to go down an aisle.
“Sorry, sir, no one is allowed into the aisles. A Krogers was looted this morning by non-card holders. We can’t have that happen here,” he said.
“But, I just wanted to grab some toilet paper. Maybe a bag of kitty litter.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, sir.”
“I mean, those technically aren’t groceries, right?”
“Not for me to say, sir. Maybe try Amazon,” he said.
I left, just another broken and hungry citizen without a grocery ID. Outside the parking lot was full. Babies cried, adults screamed at one another. The black market was in full swing with guys yelling, “Yo, yo, loose rolls. Got loose rolls here.”
Others pitched groceries of every type.
“Cereals, here. Get your Wheaties, Special K. No ID needed. You know the president is eating, you should too. Don’t go hungry.”
I looked for my car amid the chaos. A guy came up alongside me. “You look like a man who appreciates a good rib eye,” he said.
“Whaddya got?” I asked.