Journal of a Living Lady #43
Nancy White Kelly
A year ago nobody expected me to see the turn of the century. Frankly I was a bit skeptical myself. But here I am waiting with the rest of the world. In less than one hundred hours, baring no catastrophic event, the new millennium will finally begin. I say “finally” because I am tired of hearing about Y2K. I am wondering how far we will get in January before we start hearing about Y3K.
We have no plans to be in a plane, train, or bus terminal on this New Century’s Eve. Even before I was told I had serious metastatic cancer, I didn’t like the word terminal. It has such a tone of finality about it.
The year 2000 begins on a Saturday. Wall Street isn’t open on Saturdays, so guess it will be Monday before Buddy and I find out if our two shares of stock are worthless. One is Hershey’s. Surely desperate people will continue to eat chocolate. The other is a power company. If we don’t have power, we can’t watch the TV news or check the stock on the computer. What we don’t know can’t disturb us too much.
Our family is reasonably prepared for millennium glitches. The Washington Post said that most people who are preparing for Y2K have 18 cans of Spam and two jumbo slabs of Velvetta. Apparently our phone line was busy when they did their survey. I haven’t eaten Spam since I was in grammar school and, if it isn’t real cheese, I don’t like it much.
Nonetheless, we are ready for the worst. Our generator has gas in it. We have candles and wood stacked to the ceiling. The piggy bank is slap full. Besides soup, beans and bottled water, our basement is loaded with chocolate bars, cookies, potato chips and canned drinks. Don’t laugh. I’ve studied my history.
During The Great Depression Franklin Roosevelt suddenly shut all 18,000 banks in America. While the banks were closed, Americans lived without cash or credit. People bartered with all manner of things. The price of admission to see the Irish Players in Chicago was two potatoes
I am not a prophetess, but my guess is that there may be a few serious problems caused by Y2K. Economic problems are inevitable when people rush to take money out of banks. If people sweep out the grocery shelves and selfishly hoard, then food supply will be a big issue too. I figure after a few weeks, most anybody would trade a loaf of bread and a couple of pork chops for some junk food in our basement.
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