What do you suppose has us so freaked out, the 60% chance of rain on Saturday or the threat of some displaced Houstonians showing up for dinner? I tried to go to Sam’s Club and Costco today. Sam’s had three signs on the door that said, “We are out of bottled water, batteries and generators.” The “so don’t even bother coming inside” was only implied. Cars were six deep at all the gas pumps. Costco had orange cones surrounding their gas pumps because they were sucked dry. HEB was out of bottled water and ice and dangerously low on beer and butter (and flour and sugar, I noticed… are people planning on a lot of emergency baking?), but at least it was no more crowded than a rainy Sunday evening. Still, the tension level was high. One shopper knocked over a salsa display rather spectacularly right near the cash registers and half the people in my field of view jumped. The other half just groaned. Frankly, I’m surprised no one started shooting. I saw two car accidents in eight miles.

Wow, you’d think we lived somewhere that just had a hurricane. Or at least somewhere that actually could have a hurricane.

Folks, calm down. It’s not even going to get cloudy until tomorrow night. Walmart and HEB have trucks headed this way right now to bring you all the things your panicked lizard brain is telling you to buy before the other guy does. Retail life will go on. Tomorrow, in fact, if you want to go through it all over again.