More strikes!

Ok, so we made it through the DEH strikes and it was humbling. Now we're at the mercy of the truckers that are demanding the right to increase their haulage rates. That's fine and dandy, I do understand that when the price of fuel increases, naturally everything increases. So with that being said, I understand that truck drivers need to cover the costs of operating by increasing their rates...but why do they have to stop working?
How does this affect me? The little person? Well, the other day I went to a Lidl store to shop. I walked in and the store looked as if it were in liquidation. Even Izabella asked me where the food was. I'm not kidding, there was almost nothing in that store except for cookies, sauces and other non-perishable food items. The frozen food section was completely empty and the produce section had a few heads of cauliflower and I think some celery. That's it. I wanted to buy the kids' favorite chicken nuggets, some frozen fries, butter, paper towel and more. I think that the only thing that I was able to purchase that was on my list were cans of evaporated milk, the kind that is necessary to make a perfect frappe. Bummer. Outside of the store I was approached by a woman from Germany. She asked me why the store was so empty. Of course, I told her that there was a strike and that trucks weren't delivering anything and hence, the store was nearly empty. The woman apparently owns a home here and is in the country for 2 weeks. What kind of vacation will she have if she can't put food in her fridge or gas in her car? Big bummer.
Since they didn't have everything that I needed I had to go to another grocery store and luckily, I was able to find almost everything on my list, except butter. Sorry, no baking this week kids...the truckers are striking. How do you explain their actions to children? Well, we do our best but I'm not sure that they really get it. So, here I am trying to shop for my family on a budget when I have to spend more money at a second store that has what I need and then to top it off, I used extra gas to get to the next store...which is is dwindling and I have no way of purchasing in the near future.
Today we received a phone call from Izabella's teacher. My daughter had (still has) a high fever and I had to go pick her up. Obviously, I went to pick her up but I had one more thing to worry about. I had to worry about running out of gas. Her school is a half an hour from home and I passed at least 20 gas stations on the way to get her and they were all closed. So, luckily I had enough gas to pick her up and bring her home, but that's about it. I haven't had to worry about running out of gas since I was like 22 or something, when we barely had enough money to make it. Now, I worry about running out because some people need an increase in pay so they decide to hold their country hostage, again. What if I didn't have gas to get my daughter? What about other people that need to get to work, they need to make money to support their families and they can't get to work because they can't purchase gas? You know, life could be a lot worse. A cyclone could have wiped out half of the country or an earthquake could have struck, leaving everyone in a lot more trouble, trouble that no one has control of. Why is it ok for these people to make everyone suffer for their personal gain? I guess that I can be thankful that at least we have power this time around because I'll be spending a lot more time than usual at home since I have no gas in my car.


Here's today's article in Kathimerini for more details concerning this latest round of strikes.