Thursday, April 2, 2020

Signs of the Apocalypse

I've been wondering why people hoarded toilet paper.  Pasta and sauce and sugar and butter would all make sense to me.  Toilet paper did not jump to the front of my mind when we last walked through Albertson's, Thursday, March 12th.  I wish that Rao's marinara sauce had.

Onions and potatoes are available; eggs are not.  Aren't the hens laying?  Somebody's got those eggs, which aren't getting any fresher, and there are probably workers who'd like to help process them.  If we only had testing with immediate results, the supply chain would be much happier.

Alas.

So, back to what's on the shelves.  My $200 Safeway order resulted in two bags of groceries - a sad head of iceberg lettuce, an onion, three bananas and three tubs of ice cream.  Chicken?  Nope.  Mozzarella cheese?  Nope.  That spaghetti sauce I love?  Not at any price.

JannyLou and I discussed this yesterday afternoon, outside, on the path between our houses, on chairs at least 6' apart, with a brisk wind blowing any airborne particles away.  She told me a story of an ex-pat family she knew while they were living in Mexico.  Somehow, they managed to leave Iran on a jet that shared the tarmac with the Shah, who fled as they watched.  They were in Chile for Allende.

There was more, but the lesson was the same every time.

When the toilet paper and the cooking oil start flying out the door, the revolution is not far behind.

7 comments:

  1. I don't have a clue about the toilet paper but the farm newspaper said the problem with eggs is a lot were going to restaurants, who don't have them packed the same way. With restaurants having a different situation with take out or delivery, now those eggs have to be repacked. They said they will soon be in stores as they always were. We could hope.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, there ya go! Egg mystery, at least, solved for the moment.
      a/b

      Delete
    2. I'm missing something here. The restaurants and stores were getting the eggs before, and now with people eating out less, then shouldn't more eggs be shipped to stores. I figure people who don't know how to cook will always have eggs which can be cooked so easily. I only use eggs for baking (Terry and I don't like eggs just cooked as eggs) and a dozen will last me a couple of months. Well, those months are up and we are down to one egg which will go into pancake batter on Saturday.

      Delete
    3. Here is the article-- https://www.capitalpress.com/nation_world/agriculture/egg-prices-surge-as-demand-spikes/article_a8a52f00-7396-11ea-8fa0-0b1f0230023e.html

      Delete
    4. And there was an article somewhere talking about packaging issues on both eggs and tp. The windows for grocery pick up are now only 3 days away instead of 7, so things are improving as we get used to the new reality.
      a/b

      Delete
  2. We were at Fry's on Valencia this morning (waaaaaay too early) they had many eggs. They must have gotten a truck in because the aisles were full of people stocking shelves. No toilet paper, however. Bread was in short supply.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not going into a store unless I can pick up a prepared bag of goodies I've paid for in advance. I'm doing "drive up and bring it out to the UV, please" for my favorite local restaurants .
      a/b

      Delete

Talk back to me! Word Verification is gone!