A few things happen in the calm before a well-predicted nor’easter.
Plow drivers brace for long hours on the road. Utility companies monitor the likelihood of power outages. And store clerks hand over those sacred snowstorm necessities: bread, milk and eggs.
It’s not that New Englanders strip the shelves bare in a panic, as it happens in less snow-prone areas. Instead, they see the forecast and pay a methodical visit to their corner store.
It’s cliché, but it’s true, said Jim Bashios, the owner of the South Street Market. Snow is good for business.
“They’re gonna come in, then they’re gonna go home and wait out the snow,” he said. “Just the essentials, the beer, the milk, the rock salt and whatever else they’re in the mood for.”
Travis Strople, a clerk at Quality Cash Market, said he’s used to it, too. His shop wasn’t too busy Thursday morning, but the usual routine was happening all the same.
“Basic groceries like milk and eggs and stuff like that, so they don’t have to go out,” he said.
The observation strikes at something that everyone can relate to, comedian Vic DiBitetto once told Newsday, a New York newspaper.
After 33 years of standup, it was a 29-second YouTube video that earned DiBitetto widespread recognition. In it, he looks to the sky and rushes to his car, frantically repeating with increasing panic all the way: “They said snow! I’ve gotta get the bread and milk!” Since 2013, it’s been viewed more than 15 million times.
Take that bread and milk and add in the third ingredient, eggs, and you’ve got the basis for another popular meme: The French Toast Alert System.
This Boston-based Facebook page says it exists “to help you determine when to panic and rush to the store to buy milk, eggs and bread.”
The index was set to a mere “guarded” on Thursday, because the coast was mostly spared from the storm. It warned that watchers should, “Check car fuel gauge (and) memorize quickest route to emergency supermarket should conditions change.”
The weather-monitoring website AccuWeather posits that the bread and and eggs tradition started in New England after the Blizzard of ’78.
“It was the monumental blizzard in 1978 that trapped many in homes for weeks that gets at least some credit for the current tradition,” the website says.
As quintessential perishables, bread and milk might seem like odd choices to stock up on ahead of a potential power outage.
But then again, they’re also key elements in any number of recipes, and they remain useful without any cooking at all – think cereal and sandwiches.
The website HowStuffWorks once asked a group of psychologists why we stockpile these items. They said it can help us feel that we’re in control, whereas filling a cart with canned goods feels like an admission that the storm will be too much to handle.
“Buying perishables is like saying, ‘The storm will be over soon and I won’t be stuck in this situation for long,’ ” Judy Rosenberg, a Los Angeles-based clinical psychologist, told the website.
What do our local shopkeepers think is the reasoning behind our bread and milk obsession?
“I can’t answer that,” Bashios said. “I don’t know.”
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)