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In the summer of 2003, as I'm sure many will remember, there was a large black-out that spanned approximately 3 states (Ohio, PA, and NY) and even portions of southern Canada near Lake Erie.
During this summer, I was working at the custard stand I love so dearly and coincidentally, I was scheduled for this fateful night. My shift starts at 5, around 3:30/4 the power goes out. I don't think much of it at first as black-outs happen occasionally, especially during August when everyone's cranking their AC's. But 5 gets closer, I start to worry a bit.
I get to the store and my four managers are there (a rarity and sure sign things are going wrong). As power has been off for nearly an hour and a half now, they're giving away free custard, or else it will all melt and go bad.
I suggest to bring some up to the hospital that my mom works at (which was right across the street from the shop) and give some free to the employees there. My managers love it and load three 4-gallon tubs into my car. The hospital was quite happy.
I get back to the store and there's a line out into the parking lot. Apparently news had spread that we were giving away free custard. We're scooping about 3 large scoops of melting goodness into 16 oz. cups and just shoving them out the window for people to grab.
So far, everyone's just happy they're getting free custard.
Then we get an SC.
At this point we have had no refrigeration for 3-4 hours except the residual cold from the ice in the freezers. Because of this we were only giving out custard, no sundaes, no toppings, nothing like that.
This woman wants - no, needs - strawberries on her custard. We explain to her that we don't want to give it to her because they're going bad as we speak and we don't want to be responsible for giving her food poisoning. She doesn't really care if she gets sick. She wants her strawberries!
Whatever, fine. We give her her strawberries and wish her health well.
As the night goes on, we obviously run out of vanilla and chocolate and our custard flavor of the day. We are left with Pistachio Yogurt (which actually isn't that bad) and French Vanilla Cappuccino No Sugar Added/Fat Free Yogurt (which isn't very good).
People are pissed. They want free custard, but they want vanilla/chocolate/something good! Why don't we have any vanilla/chocolate/something good left?!
*headwall*
My managers close up the window and grab a tray of what are basically our version of Dilly Bars (vanilla covered in chocolate and nuts on a stick) and run outside to calm the sweating, raging masses who couldn't get their favorite flavor for free.
I'm happy though because the concert I was going to the next night wasn't canceled and it was marvelous!
Yay!
I'm sure other people have SC stories from the black-out, anyone want to share??
During this summer, I was working at the custard stand I love so dearly and coincidentally, I was scheduled for this fateful night. My shift starts at 5, around 3:30/4 the power goes out. I don't think much of it at first as black-outs happen occasionally, especially during August when everyone's cranking their AC's. But 5 gets closer, I start to worry a bit.
I get to the store and my four managers are there (a rarity and sure sign things are going wrong). As power has been off for nearly an hour and a half now, they're giving away free custard, or else it will all melt and go bad.
I suggest to bring some up to the hospital that my mom works at (which was right across the street from the shop) and give some free to the employees there. My managers love it and load three 4-gallon tubs into my car. The hospital was quite happy.
I get back to the store and there's a line out into the parking lot. Apparently news had spread that we were giving away free custard. We're scooping about 3 large scoops of melting goodness into 16 oz. cups and just shoving them out the window for people to grab.
So far, everyone's just happy they're getting free custard.
Then we get an SC.
At this point we have had no refrigeration for 3-4 hours except the residual cold from the ice in the freezers. Because of this we were only giving out custard, no sundaes, no toppings, nothing like that.
This woman wants - no, needs - strawberries on her custard. We explain to her that we don't want to give it to her because they're going bad as we speak and we don't want to be responsible for giving her food poisoning. She doesn't really care if she gets sick. She wants her strawberries!
Whatever, fine. We give her her strawberries and wish her health well.
As the night goes on, we obviously run out of vanilla and chocolate and our custard flavor of the day. We are left with Pistachio Yogurt (which actually isn't that bad) and French Vanilla Cappuccino No Sugar Added/Fat Free Yogurt (which isn't very good).
People are pissed. They want free custard, but they want vanilla/chocolate/something good! Why don't we have any vanilla/chocolate/something good left?!
*headwall*
My managers close up the window and grab a tray of what are basically our version of Dilly Bars (vanilla covered in chocolate and nuts on a stick) and run outside to calm the sweating, raging masses who couldn't get their favorite flavor for free.
I'm happy though because the concert I was going to the next night wasn't canceled and it was marvelous!
Yay!I'm sure other people have SC stories from the black-out, anyone want to share??
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