I Overpacked for the Apocalypse, So My Daughter Invited the Street novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Fourteen Snacks

At the warehouse club Floyd's cart for two meets Lucy's cart for the street, and at the register Neil photographs the tabs of the binder and offers to take over logistics.

My cart held two hundred and eighty snacks, and the formula was on a laminated card.

Two people, ten days, fourteen snacks a day.

I had shown the card to a stock boy at the warehouse club out on Route 9.

He said, "Cool," and walked away from it quickly.

Lucy came down the aisle on Tuesday evening with a second cart.

She had spent Monday walking Birch Street with my seating chart, and she had come home with a list.

"Nine," she said. "Nine people so far."

"Nine what?" I said.

"Riders. Mrs. Crowl, Garth, the couple at number six, the family of three at number nine, and us."

"Plus the beagle."

"Plus the beagle," said Lucy. "He's three-legged. He'll need an aisle seat."

I picked up my laminated card.

"Nine people, ten days, fourteen snacks," I said.

Lucy did the math with her pen on the back of her hand.

"That's twelve hundred and sixty snacks," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Dad," said Lucy. "That is twelve hundred and sixty granola bars."

"Not all granola bars. I've included variety."

"You have a column called Crunch Tier," said Lucy.

"Morale is variety," I said. "Meals are logistics."

"Tell me what counts as a snack."

"Anything eaten in one hand without a utensil."

She took a rotisserie chicken from the display and held it up in one hand.

"This is a snack," said Lucy.

"That's a meal."

"I'm eating it in one hand."

"With your other hand you're tearing it," I said. "That makes it a meal."

"So a meal is a snack that needs a second person."

"I will accept that."

I wrote it on the card.

We stood in the aisle, arguing over the legal definition of a chicken.

A woman pushing a cart of toilet paper took the long way around us.

I should have stopped, because I was losing.

But I did not know how to stop being a man who needed the number to be right.

"Seven," said Lucy finally. "Seven snacks a day, and the rest is real food."

"Seven times nine people times ten days is six hundred and thirty."

"Six hundred and thirty snacks, Dad," said Lucy.

"The pretzels are still banned."

"What did the pretzels ever do?" said Lucy.

"Last time, they carried," I said.

"Carried where?"

"Nowhere. Forget it."

She put six cases of something in her cart.

I put six cases of something else in mine.

For a while we shopped in parallel.

In the juice aisle she stopped.

There was a case of the small boxed juices with the straws taped to the side, apple and grape, forty to a pack.

Lucy looked at them and said nothing.

"Your mother packed those," I said. "For the drive to the lake."

"I know."

"She put the grape ones on top in the cooler," I said. "You said they tasted colder."

"I know, Dad."

I lifted the case and put it in her cart.

She let me, and she didn't say thank you, and that was the right answer.

At the register the cashier scanned for a long time.

My cart came to one amount and Lucy's to another, and the cashier kept looking up to see which of us was in charge.

"Are you stocking a shelter?" she asked.

"A family trip," I said.

"A big family," said Lucy.

"Oh, you're the Beldons," said a voice behind me. "I've been hearing about the Beldons."

I knew the voice.

Neil Cresset is forty-seven, and he is the president of the Birch Street homeowners' association.

He sells sealed basement shelters out of a showroom on Route 9.

In March he fined me forty dollars for the color of my mailbox.

He wore a lanyard.

His cart held eight rolls of heavy plastic sheeting, a case of sealing tape and a clipboard.

"Neil," said Lucy. "Hi."

"Lucy. I'm told your father is organizing a gathering."

"It's a family trip," I said.

"Five households is not a family." Neil smiled. "Bylaw fourteen. Any gathering of more than three households requires notice to the association."

"It's a trip."

"It's nine riders from five houses, Floyd. I've done the count."

He held out his hand, and I realized he wanted the binder.

I carried it everywhere, and I held it tighter.

"May I?" said Neil.

"No."

"Dad," said Lucy.

"It's private."

"It's laminated," said Neil, and with two fingers he opened it.

He turned to Tab 2, and the seating chart.

Then he turned to Tab 9, which had the lodge directions on it, and the gate, and the combination, and the key.

He took out his phone.

"For the association's records," said Neil, and he photographed both pages.

"Neil," I said.

"I'm not unreasonable. I just think this needs a coordinator."

He gave the binder back with a flourish.

"I'll take over logistics," he said.

He pushed his cart to the next register, and the cashier handed me my receipt.

I had the binder, the receipt, and the knowledge that a copy of Tab 9 was leaving the building in Neil's pocket.

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