A Matter of Perspective

We sure had an interesting evening in Little Falls on Friday, August 14. We had just dropped off one of our grandchildren and decided to go to Walmart to pick up a few things.

Everything was going great and we were actually making good time at the store. In fact, we were almost done shopping. We turned a corner coming out from one of the toy aisles and a scared looking employee stopped us.

I thought, “She looks really scared. Something must be going on.”

We heard the weather warnings prior to entering the store and had seen the angry sky, so I figured it had something to do with the weather.

She said in a shaky voice, “We are under a tornado warning and need you to stay at the back of the store in the old customer service area.”

We were the first ones in the room because the toy aisle was just a few feet from there. We got our choice of hunkering down area!

Within minutes, the small area was swarming with people. I would guess there were 50 people or more crammed into this designated space. Most of us were wearing masks and most of us were not practicing social distancing mostly because we couldn’t in this small space.

The building sounded like it was going to come apart. But a lady next to us told us that the building sounded like that even if it was a gentle rain.

Suddenly, this lady felt like a long lost friend. We were talking to her and she to us. She was comforting Jasmine who was very nervous about what was happening. We learned that she was one item short of finishing her checkout before they closed her register and she had to come to the back of the store. Bummer.

After about 15 minutes, some of the employees who were hunkering down with us, brought in a case of water and distributed it. A few minutes later, they brought in bags of chips.

It was a very nice gesture. I wish they would have given out TVs, though!

During this time, all of the checkouts were closed because all of the employees were hunkered down with us.

Since the room was way too small to hold all of us, some of the employees had gone back into the lunchroom area to free up space for more of the staff and customers.

Many of the customers just lined up along the back wall near the old customer service area.

After 45 minutes, the "all clear" was given and we were able to return to shopping and checking out. As we made our way to the checkouts, we saw several abandoned carts along the way. Many held food items like milk and frozen foods. I hope they didn’t get wasted.

Usually, I don’t go into the store when we go shopping because it is a lot of walking and I am kind of lazy sometimes. But that day, for some reason, I went inside.

Moral of the story: I sure am glad I chose to go into the store instead of staying out in the car in the parking lot! In the future, I may rethink my policy of waiting in the car!

Although, if I had been in the parking lot, I could have taken some amazing photos of the storm!