As much as I wish I had fully prepared for the potential global outbreak of a deadly virus, I have to admit I didn’t see COVID-19 coming and therefore didn’t stock up. Sure, I have some things and in an emergency, we could ration for a while but unlike some people (apparently) I don’t have 14 Costco-sized cases of toilet paper in a spare room. I like to think that this will all be over soon and those who contributed to the shortages will be stuck with their overpurchases (some Costco stores appear to be banning returns of hoarded items). Maybe some will even donate.
I live out in the country. I’ve noticed that the panic seems to have taken a little longer to get here than in the city. A week earlier I stopped at a Costco in Knoxville and saw it first hand.
Then I tried a local store and found just about everything fully stocked. Eventually, the panic caught up with us some and the local Walmart and other stores ran out of toilet paper first, followed by potatoes, eggs, and water. The unsweetened tea and tofu appeared entirely untouched.
Those of us who view ourselves as sane and calm mostly stayed home and wait for stores to be restocked, heeding the advice of those on soapboxes and behind tiny screens posting to Facebook, we didn’t panic.
Eventually, I began to need things so I ventured out to Walmart, with a bottle of hand sanitizer stuffed into my pocket, being careful to keep a distance from everyone and to NOT TOUCH MY FACE. The full caps are because it’s very hard to not touch my face. As some as my face got the word that my hands wouldn’t be touching it anymore, it created a poorly-timed itch schedule and all the itches got into line to be randomly tempting. “I see you just entered your PIN on that touch screen. Do you know what would feel good right now? If you rubbed that same finger into your eyeball.” NOOOOOO!
Anyway, as the news reports that some states are enforcing quarantine, where their citizens are not allowed to leave their houses, many of us are starting to realize that we soon may not be able to leave our houses so we had better shop now for what could be a weeks-long or a month-long quarantine. It’s a little harder not to panic buy. I went to Walmart yesterday and although they were much better stocked, I saw some shoppers with grocery carts (called “buggies” in the south) full of items, prepping for the zombie apocalypse. Some of them had actual panicked looks on their faces. I grabbed a few gallons of water and some vegetables. I saw toilet paper but decided against stocking up. We have plenty for a month or so and I really don’t want to contribute to the problem BUT I also don’t want to poop in the forest. I’m still not 100% sure I know what poison ivy looks like. I think I’ll wait a little longer on toilet paper.
But I will say that trucks are rolling into markets regularly and few items are totally sold out. That’s good. But I’m not sure how much longer the “don’t panic” advice is going to work if more states enforce staying at home for weeks at a time.
What crazy times!