Fred & Wilma, 2nd Day, Continued

 

5. 2^nd Day Continued

And then I got to thinking about our daughters and their families. And I thought, if we ever use that fuel the time to do so is now. We should drive to their houses and see how they are. Then I thought, what if they are on the way here, and we pass each other? See what happens when  you think?

 I broached that subject with Wilma, and she said "Let's Go!". The way she said it reminded me of William Holden in The Wild Bunch movie. Made me proud of the woman I married almost fifty years ago.

 And then, just like the movie Wild Bunch, I started pulling pistols out. I grabbed both mine and my wifes .380 pistols, her .22 revolver,  the tactical 12 gauge and some ammo and a bunch of loaded magazines. I know, .380 is small. I am not a person who does a lot of gun stuff, and I bought the .380 because the gun store was out of  9mm, and didn't know when they might get some. And anything larger is simply out of the question for both of us, because of the strength of our hands.   Then I thought to myself, this might be a little overboard. If we get stopped by a cop we're going to jail.

 We decided to take my old Dodge Dakota pickup, because it is a four door and has a bed we can carry stuff in if need be. I started to unload the unnecessary stuff I had in my back seat, and I heard a vehicle pull into my driveway. I looked and it was my grandson James and his girlfriend Marie and right behind him was his mama and my soninlaw Wallace and my granddaughter Renee in their three vehicles. And they were all loaded down with stuff. And dogs and cats.  Holy shit I thought to myself.

 Wilma was beside herself with joy, and that is a sight to behold if you've never seen anyone beside theirself.

She hadn't said a word all yesterday and today but I knew she was worried sick over our kids. Truth be told so was I.  We had lots of crying and hugging and backslapping and when it was mostly done I said "When did you decide to come up here? We were just getting ready to come look for you!"Wallace looked at Kathleen and she looked at us and said "Remember? You always told us if the shtf that your house here is our rally point? Well, in our neighborhood the shtf last night. There was a kind of meeting at the empty lot by the empty Walgreens store. The police told us what happened with the electricity and the phones. Everyone started going crazy, walking around the neighborhood asking who had what kind of food and some of the people were actually trying to take food out of some of the houses, whether they were empty or not. About six of those idiots came to our house and tried kicking the door in, but Wallace was able to scare them off when he shot his gun into the door, and the bullet went thru the door into them. Didn't hit any of them but we found pee spots on the porch. When he did that they scattered and didn't come back last night."

 "So this morning we loaded up everything we could into my truck, his truck, and Renees car. Just before we left James and Marie got to our place. He had some room left in his car so we loaded him up. We got all of our food and water, and all of the cats and dogs. "

"Put the dogs in the back yard. Here let me open the gate. You know the cats are probly gonna run off, but for now let them in the house, we'll put them out later? Have you heard anything from your sister Leigh?"

"No, we haven't, we just came straight here hoping they were here!"

I looked at my grandson who was in a gigantic hug with his grandmother, who was still crying. "Hey,  I thought you would ride it out at your house?"

"I would have. All of my roommates are on a trip to LA, I was on the phone with them when everything quit. I had to work or I would have been with them. They were looking for a gas station with relatively low prices. They were almost empty of gas. I hope they found one and are on their way home. Last night there was some kind of meeting going on at the shopping center by my house. I heard loudspeakers so Marie and I went over. The police there were saying something about cyber attack and grid down. I didn't hear it all, but I talked to a few people who did and they told me what the cops said. I remembered you and I discussed this kind of thing and I thought about my options. Which weren't a lot. Very little food at my place, all my roommates gone. So I decided to go see Mama and Wallace. And here I am."

"Well, I am glad you are here, and not there. Help me get this goat rope organized will ya?"

I got everyones attention, and then asked Wilma where she thought we should unload everything. She kindof looked like a deer in headlights, just like I did. Even though we have a moderately large house, we don't have a lot of room left.

"Okay, let's put the food in the dining room. Put it on the table under the table wherever you can. The fridge stuff should be able to go in one of the fridges. Take the colas out of the one in the garage and there will be lots of room. The fridge freezer has ice trays and bottles full of ice. Take those out and put freezer stuff there. I think our upright freezer may have room for a couple of things.  The other stuff for now we will stack in the front room. Let's get to work."

 We had everything unloaded and put away in about an hour. I was looking out my front window and it looked like a used car lot out there.  With their 4 cars and my 6 cars holy shit we are running out of room. And if we can get Leighs family up here that will be 2 more cars.

 I found Kathleen and asked her about the boy scout trailer. She said they didn't mess with it  because it is chock full still of boy scout camping stuff.