Tell people in Hawai'i there's a water shortage and they shrug and keep hosing down the driveway.

Tell them there could be a rice shortage and they run screaming for the nearest grocery store and clean out the shelves.

Hawai'i loves rice. We don't just love it in the way we love chicken katsu or li hing mui or guava chiffon cake. We love rice like family.

It's more than food staple, more than habit. It is more than a carb addiction. Rice is an emotional touchstone.

It is our measure of an orderly world. It is our answer to every emergency, our tie to security and normalcy. If there's rice at dinner, we can believe everything is going to be all right. If we're having stew with bread or chili with crackers, there is no pretending we're not in dire circumstances.

Hurricane coming? Buy rice. Big rains predicted? Pick up another 25-pound bag. They're talking dock strike? Let's head to Costco. Somebody lost their house? Poor things, give them couple bags rice to help out. Aloha Airlines not flying? Take some Calrose on the Superferry for the cousins in Maui.

There doesn't need to be an actual rice shortage to cause a run on rice. Just the potential of a limited supply will cause a panic. People see that there's suddenly more shelves than rice in the rice aisle and pretty soon they're pushing aside the 24-pack of toilet paper in the cart to make room for a couple of large bags of Diamond G. If you're in the checkout line buying batteries and bottled water, the clerk might prod you with the "Why, what? You not buying rice? You get enough already? Lucky, eh?"

Put the groceries back in the cart and head back to the rice aisle. Shucks, she's got a point.

The older generations have emotional scars from rice shortages in their youth, be it wartime rationing, the 1949 Hawai'i dock strike or the 1971 West Coast dock strike that had every family hoarding closets full of toilet paper (and those were the days before bathroom tissue came in 24-roll packs). It doesn't take much for them to get nervous about being without again.

But there is more than enough to make folks nervous these days, from worldwide food shortages to interisland shipping troubles. The local economy is ebbing. There have been mass layoffs. The travel industry in turmoil. The real estate market is no longer red hot.

Where all of that comes home to roost is on the rice aisle of your grocery store where the few little 5-pound bags seem to say, "Uh oh."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.