Not taking my own advice (Life in the time of Wuflu, Part 3)

Local grocery store with 3 lonely packages of  toilet paper still on the shelf.

Got to be honest, I haven’t taken my own advice today. Probably won’t tomorrow, but I figure that will be it, barring emergencies. Things are starting to get weird, and it’s time to stick a lot closer to home. However, they aren’t getting violent or even rude. I have to say, I’m honestly impressed with my neighbors at this point.

Mrs. Freeholder took the day off to accompany me on some errands, including a trip to Georgia. (We’ll talk about that bit of lunacy later.) While there, given the news of the last 24 hours, I decided an abject lesson was needed to once and for all drive home the answer to “Why I prep” for her.

She got it wide-screen. Have you ever seen a Walmart being emptied out one buggy at a time, but by a couple of thousand of buggies per hour? It’s an impressive sight, and now she’s seen it. What has been seen cannot be unseen. Great gaping holes where the peanut butter once sat make an impression.

In the process of refueling her vehicle, I decided to be sure, and we went by a local grocery store because we “were a little below where I’d like to be on toilet paper”. Well, as the picture shows, so was the grocery store. Those shelves are about 40′ long. They were full of TP a couple of days ago.

In both stores, canned meat, dried beans, rice and bleach were gone. Cooking oil was nearly gone. Flour was getting pretty thin. Frozen foods heavily picked over. Bottled water disappearing fast.

I was an asshole. We bought ice cream and doughnuts, some more cat food and with a few other miscellaneous things that we’ll need and use over time. I left the more critical stuff for those who weren’t smart enough to panic early.

It’s easy to take me to task for doing what I did today. However, as a school teacher she is exposed to everything coming and going. We know the wash your hands, don’t touch your face and all that. Plus we’re being sure to get plenty of sleep, eat well and taking our supplements. By my judgement, while the risk was non-zero, it was low. No obviously sick folks encountered. The areas we were in have no known cases, but we are getting some uncomfortably close. The time to hunker down is nearly upon us.

While driving, her school was bombarding her with emails about the status of their disaster planning (better late than never). I suspect that she will be done with school for a while by next Friday. She thinks by Tuesday, and I can’t fault her logic.

Tomorrow will be a trip to the local big-box home improvement place for material to do some home projects while we’re shut in, avoiding the Wuflu. I’ll also top off the last vehicle gas tank and a couple of empty gas cans.

I’m going to maintain a positive, if watchful and wary, attitude. A panicked freakout does no one any good. We’ve discussed rally points and exfil plans with Son and Daughter, and they are on board. I have some things to do here, such as sanitizing and refilling the water storage and finishing up the repackaging of staple foods, but mostly we’re done and realistically have been for a week. Everything I’ve done since then was essentially gilding the lily.

I hope you and yours are ready for this. I also hope by August we’re all going around looking sheepish about this. Still not betting on that, though.