All the stores I’ve been in here in Tucson have been out of TP. At the Walgreens some poor clerk had to tell 6 people in a row that they were out of sanitizer and weren’t sure when they were going to be getting any more.
The Basha’s grocery store near me was almost out of kitty litter. I bought some because I need to change over her litter and I was out. The cans of Spaghetti-Os, canned ravioli & whatever else Chef Boyardee makes were really picked over.
If your family is stuck in your house for a couple weeks, you’ll be going through a lot more toilet paper than if everyone is going to work and school. And you can’t leave the house for more toilet paper. And, if supply chains are disrupted, there might not be a regular supply at the store anyway.
This doesn’t mean that you need 1,000 rolls of course, but having some extra makes sense.
Likewise for the “Oh sure, everyone is at the store instead of social distancing” criticisms. You’re better off getting your stuff now while the virus is starting to spread than to wait until stores can’t staff themselves or distribution is erratic. Know what’s less fun than a chance of getting COVID-19 at store in March? Having nothing to eat during a quarantine in April. And how much do people need? Who knows? We’ve been getting lied to at every step by the Administration so people don’t know how to react. We’re told “Oh, there’s just a couple cases and it’ll all be over soon” then you see entire nations shutting down. Is that cause to buy an extra week’s worth of canned soup or a month’s?
I suggested my local Kroger hire me as a greeter wearing this outfit. They haven’t taken me up on it yet.
I still haven’t seen anything in the stores to rival the Great Quad-Cities Blizzard panic buying I experienced decades ago. Struggled to the supermarket to buy hamburger, only to find the entire meat case denuded except for a small, lonely turkey ham. I got considerable grief from Mrs. J. when I returned home with that turkey ham (there were no cellphones in those days to document the lack of other meats).
You know what clogs pipes? Paper towels. Not water pipes, obviously, but sewer pipes. I am really really shocked how many people I have seen (even here) say “well, I have paper towels, so I will be okay”. Paper towels do NOT dissolve like toilet tissue. Kleenex doesn’t either.
You don’t have to throw them in the toilet. I’m pretty sure my toilet won’t properly flush paper towels anyway. You can do it like they do elsewhere and throw them in the trash. May feel a bit icky the first few times, but you get used to it. I’ve been to a number of places where it was not allowed to flush any kind of paper product down the toilet.
I suggested to my wife this morning that she should probably start putting toilet paper, kleenex and paper towels in the laundry cycle. She didn’t seem amused.
That reminds me of the comedic post-apocalyptic movie Zombieland, in which one of the survivors is on a constant search for Twinkies, which he misses but has not had since before the crisis started. I wonder what I should stockpile, Just In Case.
Or you can do what much of the world does, and use a container of water and your left hand (or, I presume, your right hand if you’re a southpaw). I know it raises the spectre of “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” to our delicate Western sensibilities, but it’s better than clogging up the sewage treatment facilities and/or septic system.
Disclaimer: yes, I use toilet paper. But I’d do the above before I flushed a shitload of non-dissolving material.
As my plumber and city water department say in unison: The only thinks you flush are pee, poop, and toilet paper. Nothing else. It does not matter what a label may say if you can flush it. If it ain’t pee, poop, and toilet paper, you never flush it.
I’m betting plumbers are going to be very busy with toilets plugged by nose tissues, paper towels, baby wipes, wet wipes, diapers, etc.
Arm & Hammer sells sealed “barrels” for dirty diapers, which I presume could also store dirty paper towels. It’s deodorized with baking soda, but I suspect you still need to hold your breath whenever it’s open.
Went to Wal-Mart today, which is oddly a little less hectic than HEB here. HEB is a madhouse. We were actually able to park up near the front at Wal-Mart. They had employees blocking the paper goods rows and handing out limited amounts. NO EGGS available at my nearby HEB or Wal-Mart. Apparently people around here (Texas) are planning to use lots of eggs if they become quarantined. No Diet Coke, only Diet Pepsi (oh how I suffer).
People still seem to be on good behavior as far as not rushing the aisles and knocking down employees and other shoppers.
Bleach shelves empty. Also no hand sanitizer.
Does anybody know how long it takes hand sanitizer to go bad? I have some that I bought a while ago.
Another vote for the bamboo toilet paper. I still have a few rolls left from my initial order. Unfortunately, apparently all the preppers apparently know about bamboo toilet paper too! It was sold out when I looked the other day at the “Who Gives A Crap?” website.
IMO it is very soft but maybe a little harder to tear off the roll, like it’s a bit tougher. Not that much.
Here’s my report from Kroger today. First thing, I usually shop there on Sunday afternoons, I was surprised that the store was less busy than usual. My first thought was the store was emptied out. The dispenser of disinfecting wipes for cleaning carts was full. First thing I see is the produce dept. It looked totally normal. I didn’t investigate too closely but the apples, oranges, (green) bananas…plenty. Green leafy stuff, seemed normal. My first stop was for the loaves of bread from the bakery. Plenty. All baked goods seemed stocked as normal. Walked past the seafood counter and I didn’t buy anything but it looked normal. The first sold out stuff was the meat section. No ground beef, no chicken. Steaks, and organic stuff was available. All the pork products you could want. Bacon, sausage, kielbasa, etc., all you want. Eggs, they had plenty of normal grade A large but there was a lot of empty space in the egg area. Milk was available in 1/2 gal. and quarts, not a lot of gallon sized. Frozen pizza, anything you wanted as long as you didn’t want plain cheese or pepperoni only. I didn’t really look at the premium frozen pizzas too closely but cheap ones were definitely picked over. Fish sticks, all the premium ones gone, the cheaper they were, the more likely they had plenty. I bought a couple bags of Ore-Ida tater tots. The frozen french fries looked pretty picked over. Bags of pre-made burger patties…plenty. Bottled water, plenty. Didn’t bother to look for hand sanitizer. Canned fruits and vegetables, picked over but lots still available. I meant to get some rice but forgot so I don’t know how rice and dried beans were doing.
Definitely sold out:
Toilet paper and paper towels. (I did get two 300 packs of cheapo napkins.)
Bleach. Saw a guy grab the last two small (pint?) bottles of Clorox.
Ground beef and chicken.
After two days of stewing about idiot panic buyers I did release my inner PB and spent about double (plus a little) of what I normally spend a week.
One other thing I noticed, usually when I’m wiping down my cart with sanitzer wipes about half the people are grabbing a cart and going around me. Today, everybody was wiping down their carts.
Governor going to shut down all bars and restaurants in 3 hours. I was leaving large tips assuming this was eventually going to happen. didn’t expect it today.
Interestingly it might improve fast food drive throughs. We had a local Taco Bell shut their walk-in section down for remodeling and the drive through became much faster.
Very interesting thread … keep those findings coming you make me feel like I still live in a big city, which I don’t. Costco and Walmart are 60 miles away over hard mountain driving.
All I have are two little country stores for 2,200 people with already high prices. So I’ve been ordering from Walmart, but now every thing I like says out of stock especially paper towels
and can food.
So keep it coming especially when things pick up and there is plenty in stock for everyone
One thing I kept thinking as I shopped, if you have picky elementary age kids that want what they are used to…it’s probably gone.
One thing I didn’t mention, the cereal section seemed really picked over.
