I was in the grocery store the other day and the bottle water shelves were pretty much denuded. I have no problem with tap water, so no mass buying for me, but as I passed those empty shelves with my cart I had a sensation of needing to buy a couple of cases. (I managed to hold out against it)
It’s amazing what the herd instinct in humans creates sometimes.
Huh. I just came back from grocery shopping at my local market (Chicago, Midway area), and it’s still normal there. Plenty of toilet paper. Plenty of bottled water. I’m not seeing any evidence of panic buying here yet.
I understand the logic of having extra TP on hand, because if the supply chain breaks down and you can’t get any TP, it’s gonna be a problem.
Bottled water, not so much. I can refill bottles from the tap. Even if you think tap water doesn’t taste good, it’ll sustain life perfectly well.
If things get to a point where city water isn’t working anymore, then Lord help us all.
Ireland: Panic buying has started after the announcement this morning. Queues to get into supermarkets etc.
I actually stocked up on TP about a year ago (not intentionally). I had just gotten home from rehab place after having a stroke. And I didn’t want to run out of TP.
Anyway–I buy the 1,000 sheet Scott TP rolls. One roll lasts a week or so. The local grocery store had them on sale at the time. Buy one 12 pack and get the other free. So I grabbed four packs (48 rolls). Then the drug store down the street had a buy one 20-pack and get one 20 pack free. So I grabbed two twenty packs. Recently there was another sale but buy one 12-pack and get the other free. So I grabbed a couple.
Right now, I think I’ve got 80+ rolls (which will last over a year).
But, like, there’s other ways of wiping your ass and cleaning it. I mean, just get a hand towel and dip it in water, and clean it as needed. (Or, luckily, we happen to have a spray bidet.) I mean, of all survival-based things, this just seems the most easy to deal with.
Meanwhile, I was at the grocery, and there’s plenty of four packs of toilet paper on sale for $3.99. Like, literally, no shortage at this particular grocery. I come home, look online, and see people selling Scott 4-packs on eBay for like 20 bucks a pop. If I were a ruthless opportunist, I guess I could buy up the stock and try selling it myself online, but for couple hundred bucks it ain’t worth it and just feels icky to do.
I just made a trip to my grocery store (near west suburbs of Chicago) as well. They had plenty of toilet paper (though some brands were out of stock, but if you like Cottonelle, you’re in luck!) and bottled water. The shelves which would normally have disinfecting wipes and Lysol are picked clean. The store staff was actively stocking pretty much every aisle, and everything else I looked at had plenty of stock (though the cheese section was a little picked-over).
Ok, well I decided to go stock up on some things, since the pantry and chest freezer are looking a little bare.
Wal-Mart - Quite busy for a weekday morning. Milk case mostly empty. Bottled water and TP shelves were empty; they weren’t out of either, they had just plopped entire pallets of both in front of the shelves instead of stocking them. Soups, pasta, tuna were all very picked over. Gatorade/Powerade shelves were mostly empty.
I dropped about $200, which is only a little more than we spend a week anyway. Stocked up on carrots/celery/onions for soups, potatoes, frozen veg, frozen chicken, frozen pizza. About 30 packages of ramen, but that was mostly because the kids love it and each eat at least 1 a day on average. 2 18-count eggs, we usually get 1/week because my wife seems to live on the things, but I figured they last a while in the fridge so get 2.
I didn’t get any TP, but did take the tip from a previous poster to get a big box of cat litter.
So not exactly a panic-buy trip. I just don’t want to have to go to the store any more than we have to for a while. Fortunately the kids have spring break next week, so they won’t need to be out and about either.
Dangit…I forgot to get popcorn.
Sounds akin to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. While, as usual, the virus claimed its fair share of the very young and very old, due to an over-reaction by their immune systems it was the otherwise young and healthy who were decimated. The more robust your immune system, the more likely you’d drown in your own fluids. Wiki Cytokine Storm to see what I mean.
I read an article a couple years ago about an epidemiologist whose greatest fear was to see a revival of that virus. While we don’t have as many soldiers crowded together in barracks and trenches as in 1918 the world is ever so much more interconnected now than it was then. Fortunately Covid-19 does not seems to be going down that path. I hope it serves as a wake-up call for those in charge of such things.
Why are folks stocking up on milk? It’s not like it’s going to last a month or two in the fridge without going bad first.
You can freeze milk and it lasts 3-6 months.
Or make cheese, yogurt, etc.
I’d like to try making some so. (Having never done it before, it would likely be so-so so, so I probably won’t.)
I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks.
But then again I don’t have a spare freezer (just the top one above my fridge). But good to know when I invest in a small chest freezer this summer.
Ditto here (DFW Texas), except for TP. The toilet paper shelves were picked clean. I was just trying to get a normal week’s supply but nary a roll to be found. No sweat as we have plenty at the house, this was just a normal shopping trip.
On a lot of forums, I hear freeze-dried, backpacking food (Mountain House, etc.) cannot be found anywhere. The camping section of the store had a full rack of it so I strayed from my list and stocked up a bit. We use it on camping trips frequently and I was bummed at the run on it the last few weeks. They even had my favorite flavors. I just got enough for my upcoming trips though – didn’t hoard.
I am all set!
Wife makes toilet paper for a living at the local paper mill. A very well paying job if you can tolerate four 12 hour shifts in a manufacturing environment. A lot of it is Costco brand. You are supposed to get four days off after that, but that is all out the window now.
Each time they have an accident free month, get a case of product. Exceed a production goal, get a case of product. She is always bringing home a case of toilet paper or paper towels. They fill a substantial part of our spare room and have overflowed to my man-cave garage. We have not spent a dollar on these products for 15 years.
If all commerce, production, sales, the world, stopped today, I probably could not shit myself out of this house for about 3 years. I am mainly worried about the continued production and delivery of beer, I may have to learn a new hobby if society collapses.
It’s not just the USA, the same in parts of Europe.
But why TP? Then again, maybe around three decades ago somebody in the UK said that there was a shortage of salt … and all the shops were soon sold out. Salt? If there is one thing we would never be short of, it’s salt.
Of course the hand sanitizers and antiseptic wipes will be sold out, despite the fact that they are not very effective. And ordinary hand washing with soap is nearly as good, given that even surgeons do not have sterile skin even after the usual pre-op cleaning and washing.
Despite one poster said, the coronavirus is highly infectious, and seems to have a long incubation time. In other words, that could hardly be worse for transmission. Whether it is bad when you get it, seems to depend. Mosytl it is the elderly and weak who succumb, as with every 'flu epidemic, and we get one every year. The fact that this one can develop into pneumonia is the nasty part.
The only way to avoid falling ill is the lifestyle of a hermit, but just how long can you go without needing to buy something? My guess is, about a week, two of you are really well prepared. But your mileage may vary.
In many parts of the world there is no TP. One common solution is a bowl of water.
Kitchen paper is the thing I would stock up with with, as TP tends to fall apart when wet, but KP can be used to wipe your nether regions. But that is nether here nor there. <groan>
Sure. You got your pitcher of water and a hand. I mean, I guess it’s kinda gross to people not used to the concept but, seriously, you’ll adapt to it lickity split if you have to. Spend that money elsewhere if you’re worrying about the coming apocolypse.
Well, in terms of sheer survival, there’s no need to wipe or clean your butt at all. So I’m gonna guess that this isn’t a survival-based thing, but a ‘sanitary habits we’re used to’ thing.
So, you see someone buying an unusual amount of TP at Walmart or Costco or wherever. How do you think your idea of wiping their butt with a wet hand towel is going to go over with that person?
That’s right!
Then you get to the part about running those shit-covered hand towels through the wash. That’ll gross out most of the people who were willing to listen to the first part of your idea.
Then they’ll wheel their cart full of TP down to check-out.
Again, this is a cultural thing. Sure, if people run out of TP, and there just plain isn’t any more in the stores, they’ll find a way to make do, but it won’t, um, sit well with them, and they’ll be extremely relieved to have TP back again when we get back to some semblance of normal.
But before any of that happens, they’ll do what they can to make sure they don’t run out of TP.
Not sure what ‘kitchen paper’ is, unless it’s what we Americans call ‘paper towels.’ They tend to clog up the plumbing. Sure, you can throw them in the trash, but the reason why we have flush toilets to begin with is so we don’t have to smell our own shit after we’re done.
Again, it’s an alternative that the vast majority of Americans would go out of their way to avoid until forced into it. People will want to make sure they have a supply of TP that will last awhile if they think things are going to go kaflooey, regardless of what else might work if they get sufficiently desperate.