Went to Lowe's with The Hungarian who wanted to stock up on rechargeable batteries. They're right next to the safes and fireproof document files. You know those safes, bit smaller than a square dorm fridge? There were four of them sitting on the floor. I wondered. . . A Lowe's clerk was straightening things up and I asked him what the safes were doing on the floor. "We're starting to sell a lot of them," he said. "Oh? Why's that?" Clerk looks around, lowers voice to a whisper--I swear I am not making this up--says, "Oh, you know--Y2K." "Oh?" "Yeah people are taking their money out of the bank. And you know what else we're selling a lot of? Generators!" I asked if he had any food stashed and he said, no, if he got hungry he would "borrow" a cow from a neighbor. He was joking (I hope).

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), March 09, 1999

Answers

Uhuh. Another sign. The whispers are indicitive of the fears of discussion. Why are there so many fears and what are they?

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), March 09, 1999.

I think it's a bad idea to buy a safe for anything other than fire protection. Thief comes in... sees your safe... puts a gun to your wife's head. What good is a safe, then? Find a good place to hide your valuables.

-- anon (why2K@nowhere.com), March 09, 1999.

I just bought a safe for our backup tapes that don't go offsite... from a company that JUST OPENED couple blocks down the street, and doing good business.

I asked the owner if sales were up due to Y2K, got a confused look... and the answer "no". But then, the Austin area (partially because of our local Cox-owned paper) really does not GI at all.

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), March 09, 1999.

Cox is a major culprit, Lisa. I used to work for the Cox paper in Longview (business editor) and their reporting is woeful. They love to urge their readers to trust the government; that everything's going to be OK. Glad I don't work there anymore.

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), March 09, 1999.