The Shopping Trip
We got up relatively early today and went to get groceries. Here are some things we observed.
Traffic on the roads is light, but it’s there. Like a more pronounced version of the 2008 downturn, there is some activity but noticeably less than before.
People are still panic buying toilet paper. The paper product shelves are still almost totally bare across the board. I don’t understand the logic behind this. Are people pooping a whole lot more than before? Are people expecting the world to run out of trees? We did see a few people coming out of Costco with TP in their carts (one guy looked like he panic bought more than his car could hold), but we could not find it anywhere in the store. Costco did have paper towels that we found, and we witnessed several people taking those as well, but they were huge cases and honestly we don’t go through that many paper towels. So we didn’t buy any.
Almost everyone is being calm and respectful. Just about everyone we encountered was all too happy to give us our space. There were a few exceptions (I felt like saying “six feet” out loud to a couple of un-self-aware dudes in the store), but overall people were cool and mindful in their social distancing.
Stores are mostly reducing their shopping hours, opening a little later and closing a little earlier, probably to allow for restocking and cleaning/sanitizing. Costco is opening earlier, allowing their 60+ year old customers to shop from 8 to 9 a.m., and they are checking IDs at the door to verify age then.
The workers at the stores have got to be maxed out with stress and anxiety, but you wouldn’t know it by talking to them. The ones we encountered were all amazingly calm and pleasant.
For the most part, we were able to find everything we needed. There is still the run on paper products mentioned above, and occasional shortages on basics like sugar and flour, but most other things are available if you look around.
Congress and the White House agreed to a $2 trillion economic rescue package this morning, so hopefully that will help to ease the panic and anxiety that often results in overbuying and other weird behavior.
Bike Newbie 