I made the mistake of going shopping this evening and I am SOFAKING annoyed right now. I needed, amongst other things, a gallon of simple basic bleach, not because I'm somehow convinced I have to have a years supply for daily cleansing of my home during a post-apocalyptic mass sweeping death wave, but because I used the last of the bottle I've had for about a year doing… yeah, laundry. God dammit! Laundry!
It turns out bleach is on a list, a long list, of things that kill corona virus. I get that, and ok, maybe cleaning products are in high demand, but, not only is it all gone from the shelves, but it is on a "1 per family" mandate in the store, theoretically intended to reduce hoarding. Yet it's ALL gone. That means a shitload of asinine paranoid selfish fuckwads descended on and depleted the stores inventory in short order. I don't believe for a second that even 70% of the purchases were by people that did not have cleaning products or bleach already available at home. I suspect it's about stocking up, not immediate need. Not that there is not pallets more awaiting transport in multiple warehouses spread throughout the county, state and then country. Or that somehow, the last person with the unwritten knowledge on how bleach is produced suddenly died without transcribing the process and leaving us prone to yellow'd whites. It's just pure unadulterated selfish insanity. And greed. And lack of consideration.
I hate having to live in and accept that our society is this prone to such short sighted ignorance. But then again look who's in office.
I found they'd resupplied a product the kids eat regularly, Amy's Burrito Bowls. There was a shelf full. I took two. 2. I left the rest, resisting the fleeting urge to grab multiple more and 'stocking up' the freeze in case they ran out because, uh…. they're not going to. Other people should be able to buy this too. The manufacturing and supply are not the issues. The people feeling that preparing for the end of the world is the problem, all of the evidence to the contrary.