The forecast for tomorrow morning is "snow flurries or snow showers." Which explains why there's a run on Little Hotties Hand Warmers, even out in suburban Virginia, 20 miles from the city. I got to the Wal-Mart just after 10 pm and turned a corner into the aisle where hand warmers are usually stocked right as one customer (well-dressed black guy) was saying to another customer (shlumpy white lady), "You looking for hand warmers, too?"

She answered, "Yeah, you're going to DC?"

They were both standing next to a disinterested Wal-Mart employee who was tagging prices on boxes of fish bait. "We're out," the employee kept saying. "Someone came in and bought a bunch so they could resell them." Really? This far from DC? Where else could we go? The employee said we should go to Costco, except they were already closed, or Target, except they were already closed too. The black guy had an idea of a sporting goods store we could try, and in the parking lot I let it slip that I wasn't from around here and was staying with my Republican dad. "I'm a Republican, too," he said. Wait—really? So, um, did he vote Republican this time? "No, I didn't," he laughed. "Not this time."

He agreed to let me follow him and his wife—since I had no idea where I was going (we traded numbers in case I lost them)—but when we showed up at the sporting goods store it was closed. His wife then had the idea we should try a big Safeway down the road, but the Safeway didn't sell them, and the manager there told us to try Costco.

We parted, and out on the highway I stopped into a pretty dismal Exxon station. Nada. Then I tried a Shell station a couple more miles down the highway, but the door to the convenience store was locked. The lights were on, but no one was home. I scanned the place. Cigarettes, headache medicine, energy supplements, gum, lighters... LITTLE HOTTIES HAND WARMERS! There was a thing of them sitting there on the counter. Just then the gas station attendant materialized from around the side of the building—he'd been in the bathroom—and sold me everything they had: enough hand warmers for four people. I called my new friends, gave them the coordinates of the gas station, and handed two pairs over to them when they got there. And since they'd been gracious enough to let me follow them around, I insisted on not taking any money for them. After handing over half my stash, I'm heading to DC tomorrow with enough hand warmers for two people—me and whatever stranger I end up next to in the press area. It's going to be snowing, after all.

(Confidential to anyone in greater DC looking for hand warmers: Find a Shell station. The attendant said the next Shell station down the highway would have some, too.)