The other day, a friend of mine mentioned the following video of people fighting over toilet paper in Australia. Apparently, scenes like these have been going viral on the Internet lately:
It’s shocking to me how ridiculous people can get over the possibility of not having their toilet paper, lol.
And that’s not all, local stores (here in Seattle) have been selling out of all sorts of items, from first aid supplies–especially gloves, masks, and OTC pain relievers–to bottled water, Lysol wipes and sprays, and some food, though, I haven’t had much problem getting food this month.
It seems this panicked mentality is going on all over the country… even across the globe. And, as you might suspect, businesses and authorities are responding in kind by limiting how much you can buy and attempting to reassure folks there will be enough. But will there be?
I know when I went to Costco and later to Safeway during the first of the month that it was an absolute madhouse! Lines were as long as they are during Black Friday sales, but they wren’t buying useless electronics and gifts, opting instead for items to keep them healthy and safe. At least people were relatively civil at the time. Two weeks later and it appears our civility is beginning to wain.
The fact is that all of this could have been easily avoided.
If the majority of Americans had bothered to practice even the bare minimum of preparedness, in this case, to have a modest amount of the supplies they use regularly already stockpiled at home then there would be:
- NO need to run out at the last minute,
- NO panic when someone grabs the last roll of toilet paper, and
- NO shortages!
If you choose to already have the toilet paper, toothpaste, gloves, soap, medications, and so on that you know you need to survive and to stay healthy already on hand then you have no need to worry when something like this happens. Besides, it’s not like you’re buying items that you may never use, such as water filters and solar ovens… even though they’re both great additions for if/when a real disaster happens, but that’s a lesson for another day.
Plus, it allows supply chains to successfully deal with a slight uptick in demand that will inevitably follow things like this rather than struggling to provide supplies that quickly get snatched up as soon as they hit the shelves and then we end up with fights over toilet paper.
Let this coronavirus scare be a lesson (or a reminder to those of us who already understand) as to why preparedness is the prudent course of action as a daily practice in our lives.
Life can go on as it always has for you, give or take a quarantine or two, and all of us will be better off as a result.
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