I resent global warming. I want the seasons back the way I remember them. It isn’t a matter of “When I was a kid”. It’s a matter of “fourteen or fifteen years ago, I could rely on one really good, solid blizzard every winter.” But noooo, all you people who drive to work and hate moving slow through the icy patches texted the weather department and got it all changed. This cuts way down on my chances of snow vacation, something I have hoped for, mainly in vain, for eons.
It also spoils one of my snow vacation fantasies. When I was an innocent of a mere twenty-five or thirty years, I would move along the city streets and ask “What if I were snowed in for a night there?” as I passed the stores. I put a lot of thought into it, too, as I considered “Which is the BEST place to be forced to spend the night?”
Now, if you want to play, we have to set up a few rules. We are leaving out, say, hotels, which are set up for such emergencies, and any apartment building wherein you may have friends who would lend you their couch for a night. We are looking at places not designed to house people.
Consider, for example, the clothing store. Assuming you will even be allowed to stay after hours (although you CAN consider a separate option of being unnoticed during an emergency closing of the store and finding yourself stuck there whether or not the staff approves: build your own comedy here.) All those clothes provide one of the necessities: stuff to wrap around yourself while you’re sleeping. True, some of these garments may cost more than you’re making in a year, and you might be charged for them, but you CAN count on sleeping warm.
But what about food? Well, assuming you aren’t able to find the staff break room and steal pickles or Ranch from the fridge, what about a restaurant? I generally put such places low on the list. First of all, very few dining establishments in my neighborhood have carpet, and not many have tablecloths, so they lose points for sleepability. And, um, I may simply have seen too many horror movies, but I’ not sure I want to spend my night in a place with a large kitchen, especially if my friends don’t know I’m there. Just saying.
There would be worse things, I suppose, than to be stuck overnight in a bookstore. This provides you with something to DO overnight, much better than dodging masked serial killers in that diner. This does rather assume the electricity is going to be on, or that you carry a flashlight in your pocket. AND that you can find a bookstore.
A grocery store, of course, neatly answers the question of food and drink, though the floors are generally linoleum and you want to be sure not to sleep near the produce, if those little spray devices are up and running. And if it’s one of those stores with a hot buffet, a hearty dinner…but that means a kitchen again, doesn’t it?
There is much to be said in favor of the furniture store in regard to sleepability. Most of these have posted warnings about getting into those nicely-made beds of course, and tthere’s a chance that they’re just selling beds, so the mattresses is a cardboard mock-up, but there ARE blankets. No food, of course, without that presumed break room.
I don’t want to steal from you ALL the joy of making up your own overnight-at-Starbuck’s screenplays, but my own choice would be a department store. Here you should find a furniture department, or at least a clothing department, to provide fabric to wrap up in, a packaged food department to handle meals, possibly books or other things to use during all that time on your hands. AND public restrooms. So I….
What? Where do I expect to find a department store? Well, that just brings us back down to “When I was a kid”, doesn’t it? Have I ever told you how they made us walk to and from school through snow up to our clavicles, in the blazing hot sun? Uphill both ways? Okay, I’ll wait and tell that one when we’re stuck in Arby’s overnight.
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