This feels like a strange picture to be taking, and maybe an even stranger post to be posting. It is Wednesday, March 11. I shop every Wednesday in the late afternoon. That is what works out for my schedule and for the general planning of our week. Two years ago when we were getting ready to go to Disney World I was confounded when couple of the items on my list were hard to find. It was close to spring break and the as yet small selection of sun screens was rather picked over. Last year I did my Easter shopping a little later than usual and had to settle for second-choice candies and tidbits. Still, never have I ever encountered this kind of clearing out of shelves, probably in all my life time (unless it was that Lily Pulitzer fiasco a few years ago at Target).
A week ago I had a mild panic attack looking at the first reports of serious Covid-19 cases coming out of Washington. I put together my usual grocery list and just tried to breathe through it, but when I was already half-way to the store I realized I'd forgotten my shopping bags, and that set the dominoes falling. We had enough leftovers in the fridge to feed us for a few days so I abandoned my usual weekly trip for a very different kind of shopping experience, stocking up on enough paper and cleaning products and shelf stable foods to last a month, maybe a couple of weeks longer (but no more). It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be—I wasn't the only worried person out there and shelves in bulk stores like Costco were already emptying out, not to mention the lines, but I stumbled into the house just in time to heat leftovers for dinner, feeling relieved because I'd taken some measure of control over my situation. I had beaten the panic-beast into submission. For the time being.
Today I was again out for my regular shopping trip (this time I remembered my bags!), and the emptiness of the shelves refelcts people's growing worry. Maybe us worriers will find in the end that our planning was unnecessary, overkill, even, and this is the inner argument I hold with myself every day. How do we now the difference between preparedness and over-kill? I defined it for myself as a the fine line between being able to use everything you purchased within the time frame concerned versus being faced either with an excess of waste, or a waste of excess. And the way I see it is, even if no crisis hits, I will benefit from an entire month of not having to shop!
