Corona-mania grips the nation.
By the time you’re reading this, you will have already heard that UT system schools have been shuttered for the rest of the semester. More concerning, and of more immediate importance to the student body now is the condition of neighborhood grocery stores back home. Sorry to say, my own experience doesn’t give me much hope.
In charge of shopping for my grandparents, I made the arduous trek down to the Wal-Mart today where I confirmed many of the fears circulating on social media for days. First and foremost: yes, the rumors are true, toilet paper is in scant supply. I didn’t get to see any of the mythical TP skirmishes, because by the time I rolled through there was not a roll to be found.
More concerning were the barren shelves in the food isles. The bread isle had been decimated and the frozen meats section was looking light as well. Bottles of water were completely gone, down to the palate, although there were some gallon jugs of purified water.
I distinctly remember one exchange I caught that was rather heartbreaking. An old man in a power scooter, obviously suffering from a stroke or some impairment, was asking the employee that was helping him shop about powdered milk. The employee asked their supervisor who grimly replied, “We’re out, and I don’t know when we’ll get any more.” The managers especially seemed doubtful they would be restocked in the near future.
“I would take two,” one employee said to the couple buying bread beside me. “I don’t know when we’ll get any more.”
Keep in mind, folks, that this is the Wal-Mart in Selmer, Tennessee. We are not a hot-spot of the virus, and nowhere around us is under quarantine. If this is what it looks like here, I can only imagine what the store shelves are like in Jackson or Franklin or Nashville or Memphis.
So my advice, stock up on the essentials. Save your plastic jugs and fill them up with tap water. Buy industrial quantities of bologna as long as its still 88 cents a package at the grocery and not 10 dollars a slice at the black market corner vendor. It keeps, it’s cheap, and it tastes good fried.
While hopefully coronavirus will pass in the next few weeks, more permanent economic damage could be on the horizon. Whether this represents a blip on the radar or the start of a very dim time in America, it never hurts to take precautions to help the ones you love.
Photo Credit / Associated Press
