A toilet paper buying frenzy, a pandemic virus, a “bailout”, and us.
The world appears to have gone crazy. Just about 1 year ago, yours truly had the flu, the China Flu/Kung Flu/Covid-19 or whatever you would like to call it. Stayed in bed, drank plenty of fluids, and managed the symptoms. Just like our parents did. It’s a virus people. Viruses don’t respond to anti-biotics, and if your doctor prescribes them for a cold or flu – find a new doctor.
How to beat a virus:
- Stay home and isolate yourself as best as possible so you don’t infect your roommates or family. This means call your employer and tell them you have a flu and you need a few days so you don’t get anyone else sick.
- Drink plenty of fluids. Chicken soup, flattened ginger ale, water, gatorade – doctors call these clear fluids. No coffee, no colas. If you can not see the bottom of the container through the liquid – probably shouldn’t be drinking it.
- REST – get yourself a blanket, bottles of water, pick a movie or tv show, and sit your sick butt in the recliner, or sit/lay on the couch. Sleep. When you wake up – go to bed and sleep some more.
- Control the fever and aches/pains by following the directions your doctor gave you. If you didn’t see a doctor do what you need to do. I’m not going to tell you what to take or not take because I am not your doctor, your spouse, or your parent.
- when you ‘feel better’ wait 2 more days. Why you ask? Because this is the time where rebound, if any, will hit, and if you push yourself – odds are you will relapse and it’s going to be worse.
Back to the point – About 10 days later, after a brief trip, I came home to find everyone and their siblings buying ALL the toilet paper in every store in my area.
An aside: After this there were people STEALING toilet paper from businesses. It's TP people; we used to cover the houses, cars, and trees of our 'enemies' in the stuff.
Huh? Respitory illness and there is a rush to buy TP? Odd.
Well, I had missed the news that there was potentially going to be a quarantine over this new strain of flu, and fear of that caused mass panic. I observed some of this first-hand as I had needed to get milk and other basic sundries. I watched people load carts with paper towels, toilet paper (for those lucky few), wet wipes, household cleaners, hand sanitizer, and all kinds of other non-food items; I kept chuckling. I was asked “what’s so funny?” by the wife. Who, being female, was apprehensive about the TP inventory at the house. My response was: “Them. All these people rushing to buy everything, but food.” Oh, there were people buying bread and cereal and such, but not as many as I would have thought. It struck me right then: Browncoats wouldn’t do this. We wouldn’t strip the shelves bare of every loaf of bread (the shelf with gluten-free bread was still fully stocked), or toilet paper, or anything really.
“Why is that?” you might ask. Well it’s because Browncoats try to plan for things like this. Take a little from every paycheck every time you get paid and buy a bag of flour or bag of rice or other non-perishable supplies. People that live in tornado or hurricane zones understand they have to have enough on hand to last 2 weeks [minimum] in case they are trapped and have to wait for someone to help get them out. Most have more than 2 weeks of supplies.
The people rushing to buy TP, hand-sanitizer, soap, and other stuff- panicked bought those items and bought everything they could get their hands on because of the panic that their fear caused. They listened to talking heads on TV and because the ‘good times’ have lasted for so long they fell into the trap of thinking those ‘good times’ would never end. We see how wrong that thinking is now.
Ever heard or read the parable of “The Ant and the Grasshopper”? It is about more than work ethic.
So where do you go from here? That, neighbor, is entirely up to you. The answer depends on what you want to be. Are you going to be a grasshopper or are you going to be a Browncoat? If you are going for the former we can not really help, but if you are going for the later: your available resources, storage capacity, and comfort level of preparedness will decide where you are going from here.
We’re Browncoats – we prefer to be prepared and to be able to weather the summer(good times) and winter(bad times) without being a burden to others, and we hope you’ll join us.
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