Last year, with Irene glowering down on us and a baby on the way, I went into a kind of proto-daddy super-protective fury: buying up pallets of bottled water, jerky, batteries, etc.

Now, I’ve got Sandy about to give a big kiss to a blizzard/Nor’Easter. Gah. I don’t want to freak, but when the local Wal-Mart is selling generators by the truckload, it’s hard to avoid it.