The supermarket opens earlier Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the ancient and compromised. The theory is that everything has had a good cleaning, so the most likely to die from Covid-19 can shop when they are least likely to get it. I arrived at two minutes to 7, and it looked like Friday afternoon in the parking lot.
There was a line at the door -- a bunch more than a line, in truth; so much for social distance. When the door opened it look for a minute like Black Friday in November, an event I have spent a lifetime avoiding. But it only lasted a minute and the mob was in, a few of us stragglers tottering in behind it.
There was no hand cleaner at the door as their usually is. "We've been out for two weeks," said the assistant manager, like the barefoot cobbler.
He didn't check ID. I bumped into some people whom I would normally see at the 8 o'clock Mass. We didn't maintain social distance. Two observations:
About one-sixth of the shoppers were prancing about with clean masks and clean rubber gloves. The implication was "we have plenty more where these came from." Somebody tell Mike Pence, who has been looking for some.
And more than half of the carts had two, three or four 12-packs of toilet paper. Somebody please tell me how long it would take a geezer or a geezer and her husband to go though 48 rolls of toilet paper. My theory now is that toilet paper is going to replace money as a unit of exchange on the black market. The way the Treasury is printing dollars, those things won't be worth much very long. But toilet paper? Get it while you can. It will be worth its weight in gold bullion.
I was able to get about half of the things on my list. But one thing I got was a beautiful bunch of romaine. Remember romaine? That was what was going to kill us all just a couple of months ago.
I haven't trusted romaine since the last outbreak, unless it's from Mexico. Maybe, after this thing blows over, I'll still want to stay six feet away from everyone.
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of toilet paper as the new currency. In an econ 101 class I took eons ago, we learned that, in Nazi prisoner of war camps, cigarettes served as currency. I am not exactly sure how that worked, inasmuch as William Holden and that crew always seemed to be smoking them in the films. But, as Peter tells us in one of his letters, even silver and gold are diminishable, unlike the treasure we have awaiting us in heaven.
I'm convinced that hating on other people with toilet paper in their carts is just human nature; as I mentioned in one of these discussions, I hated on a guy with toilet paper in his cart a couple of weeks ago, even though *I also had toilet paper in my cart*. If your geezers are anything like the ones around here, most of them probably are hoarding toilet paper so that, if any of their kids or grandkids mention that they're running low, the geezer can pull it triumphantly from wherever one keeps 28 rolls of toilet paper.
Our stores here are limiting t.p. to one pack per shopper. It seems like they would all be doing that. My sister told me that someone in a pickup truck with Colorado plates came out to their Dollar General and bought every last package of toilet paper. Looks like their manager should have enforced a one per customer rule. Though maybe that's why gun sales are brisk. People figure they might have to persuade someone to sell them toilet paper. Of course I suspect someone like the pickup driver of sellibg on the black market.
ReplyDeleteMy prediction is that by April Fool's Day all bets will be off for anything but local and state restrictions. The crisis will be declared officially over and we are winners yet again.
"My prediction is that by April Fool's Day all bets will be off for anything but local and state restrictions. The crisis will be declared officially over and we are winners yet again."
DeleteThat would be mind-bendingly stupid, but very much in keeping with my rule of thumb for predicting the president's actions: imagine the very worst-case scenario you can think of, and then try to imagine it being three times worse than that, and that is what he will do.
Yes, it will be “over” - not counting NYC and California I suppose. Ross Douthat’s column provides a personal account on how problematic the testing situation is in the USA. If you don’t test, then most of the cases don’t exist? According to the Lt. Gov of Texas we old folk are supposed to sacrifice our own lives if necessary for the good of the economy.
DeleteAll restrictions are state/local, aren't they, so I don't we anything changing, unless your local officials decide Trump is a better arbiter of public health than the CDC and local health departments.
DeleteIn perhaps a silver lining story, your federal ethanol subsidies are at work. The ethanol plants have found out that they don't need permission from the Treasury department of tobacco and firearms to switch from ethanol for a fuel additive to ethanol for hand sanitizer.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and nobody is buying gasoline anyway even though it is at the lowest price in years. No place to go.
DeleteThanks for something relatively light-hearted. I am waiting to go to the grocery store during geezer hours at the end of the week.
ReplyDeleteGiven shortages, my list now looks quite different:
Bread (or pita, tortillas, or hard tack)
Rice (or barley, couscous, or orzo)
Beans (dry, canned, any kind)
Cheese (Parm, jack, mozzarella, feta, grated or block)
I expect to find my anti-snore nasal strips and votive candles.
Yes, bring your own wipes for the carts. They're long gone.
Grocery news. Went to my favorite WSMarket...manager in fine fettle. small crowd of the now usual confused never-before shoppers. When are they going to figure out where everything is?
DeleteTP two roll limit...lots of rolls there.
NO salted Butter (What!) only unsalted.
Scored some good looking tomatoes.
Farro out...
Chicken supplies looked good, but have some.
Milk supplies looked good.
It is like Armageddon here.
DeleteRight after Gov Gretchen's "stay home except for essential trips" order, everyone decided it was essential to flood the stores for another round of panic buying. Reports of people crowding around the fresh meat case and no one able to break them up. Some poor kid behind the counter told everyone to scatter, they'd holler customer numbers, but no one paid attention. One guy was blocking aisles because his wife in the car telling him what to buy and he was describing things to her.
I laugh whenever I hear people saying that they're seeing the best in people. It's every man for himself.
Re romaine. When I was a youngster in California (where most of the country’s produce is grown) my mother taught me to throw away the outer leaves of lettuce heads before the thorough rinsing. When I asked why, she explained that the farm workers in the fields had no access to bathrooms, even portapotties, and packers seldom washed their hands.
ReplyDeleteSupposed to be regulations about this nowadays, but when I drive from LA to San Jose through the Central Valley, I still don’t see a lot of sanitation facilities in the fields.
So I still throw away the outer leaves before washing.
Anne, me too, with all heads of lettuce and cabbage. I'm assuming when you buy a bag of pre-washed greens, they actually were washed.
DeleteI've started making use of that bottle of cheap vodka that I can't use for hand sanitizer, as an additional rinse for fresh fruit. Whole cantaloupe isn't in season now, but I'm going to use the vodka rinse before I cut into one later, since the rinds have so many interstices whete bacteria can hide.
I wash -- by order of she who did this stuff all those years before I retire and said, "Let me do that," not knowing how many rules there are for that -- every leaf of romaine individually and lovingly. I have never been ordered to discard the outer ones. Don't tell her.
DeleteThe outer leaves are what everyone touches, coughs, and sneezes on. They always go and the rest gets washes. Every leaf.
DeleteGlad you found use for that cheap vodka!
I have some relatives on Facebook who are connected to people who appear to be fundamentalist survivalist types who love guns, don't trust the government, and are a bit paranoid. Those people are getting twitchy. I think they started out twitchy.
ReplyDeleteThen there are people who ought to know better, because they have kids with compromised health, who see other people breaking distancing, and think,, "Well if others are doing it, what good is it for us to stay in quarantiine?
I predict all of them busting loose by April 1.
Update from the front-
ReplyDeleteSame hospital in NYC vicinity.
Former patients intubated: 30
Present patients intubated: 60
Maybe the Governor of the Great State of Texas should be called Governor Death Panel. If this scumbag needs a ventilator, he'll get one.
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-comes-under-fire-for-saying-seniors-should-take-a-chance-on-their-own-lives-for-sake-of-grandchildren-during-coronavirus-crisis/2020/03/24/e6f64858-6de6-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html
DeleteI personally don't plan to tie up a vent of I get sick, but this is not a decision I want that twit making for people.
DeleteOh, he's a lieutenant governor? I thought it was the governor. Well, maybe he's in charge of saying all the stupid things.
DeleteThey can meet the ventilator needs. It doesn't have to be the highest quality. It just has to last long enough to meet this emergency and be quick and easy to produce. What we're missing is a president like FDR to tell the manufacturers what they'll be making. Instead, we have this useless piece of crap.
This is quickly becoming an argument for "Why are we shutting down the economy to save a bunch of old people?" argument. "Make them stay home and quit ruining the economy for everyone else." See David Katz's piece on the NewsHour last night: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/2-views-on-balancing-medical-risk-and-economic-pain
DeleteI might consider Lt. Gov. Patrick's wager if there were any chance of it paying off. His dumb quote was:
Delete"No one reached out to me and said, 'As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?' And if that's the exchange, I'm all in."
But you can't negotiate with a coronavirus (a mistake The Don makes, too). Covid-9 is not offering your grandchildren's lives for yours. It will ravage the "America that all America loves" regardless of any deal you may think you have cut with it. Better than futile negotiation for mitigating it is following the best medical advice -- which is better when it comes unfiltered by The Needy Don's ego or the silly lieutenant governor's ignorance.
I love it, Tom. The "art of the deal" will not work with COVID-19. Regarding the recent suggestions from the Mammonites that old people should sacrifice themselves for the sake of their god, I have a sneaking suspicion that Trumpy's businesses might be taking a beating and Mr. Emoluments knows it. Same for all those other Repub hot shots. That's why they're becoming one big old death panel. Can a Catholic commit suicide for a pagan god? It may be ok in the RC Church, Republican Catholic, that is. Special dispensation.
DeleteMy geezer days are Tues and Thurs, 7-9. I got there at 6:50 and the line was about 100 people. The staff let 20 in at a time. Us oldsters are as obstreperous as the "normal" people; the scramble was full speed and that was fast, particular for geezers. The store is huge and it was hard to see people when I got in about 7:45. How was the 20 rule maintained? I guess as someone left, someone else was let in. BUT, I was able to actually buy meat (pork and chicken) for the first time in about 10 days. Fruit and veg? No problems. Milk, butter and eggs? I got some of the latter 2 and didn't need milk. I think I bought enough to last through the weekend. I am used to shopping daily, so a tab of $175 was a bit daunting.
ReplyDeleteGov. Wolf of PA locked down my county of Monroe. We have officially 43 cases and one death. There is still food available. The shelves are not fully stocked but there is still plenty available.
DeleteI put in a grocery order at the Meijer store in the next town over. I felt just like Bette Davis ordering supplies from Johnson's in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane." They had everything I wanted except votive candles (except the perfumy types). Maybe more people praying than I thought ...
DeletePleasantly surprised since Kroger has been a wasteland since this whole deal started.
I put in an order for delivery. First open time was April 7. We should be fine until then But they added a caveat that they couldn't guarantee that everything I ordered would be included. There was a vague sentence to the effect that the quantities might be reduced depending on availability. I didn't order unusual quantities so I hope that my order is complete when delivered. I couldn't order some items as they are out of stock.
ReplyDeleteOne of the guys at the Zoomed men's group this a.m.(Not a success; some forgot what day it is, and some were unable to get past the Zoom entrance) said he had called twice for delivery, once last week and once Monday. On Tuesday, both orders were delivered, about a half hour apart, and he got only half of what he asked for.
DeleteAnd yet there are people who shop every day -- just enough to make a show in the 10 items or under line -- to get out of the house.
Perhaps, after this is over, the medical establishment needs to re-examine their throwaway culture. It is breaking down in the present situation. Masks need to be invented that can be recycled after being exposed to germicidal UV-C radiation, chemicals or something. The masks may cost $400 but over the lifetime of the device will save a great deal of money and not require a manufacturing surge. 3D printing can produce an optimal seal to the face. They would be personalized and issued two or three to a worker. If we had such devices now, there would not be a mask shortage.
ReplyDeleteStanley, you are right that maybe we overdid the throwaways I think that happened in the wake of HIV concerns. A lot of places sterilize and re-use because they don't have any other choice. Volunteers sewing cloth mask kits are shooting for 10,000 masks for Methodist Hospital in Omaha. I don't know how well these work but at least they're something to use in a pinch.
DeleteKatherine, some are using 3D printing for face shields although that is a slow process. I hear the hospitals are close to running out. I've sent a picture of the 3M respirator I use in my more hazardous DYI projects to my OR nurse friend. If he wants it, he can have it. I'm wondering if some sort of gill-type structure could replace breathing through a porous filter. A combination of UV-C and adsorption. The gills could then be splayed and heated during the cleaning procedure. There are all kind of microstructure surfaces that might work. Heck, even artificial cilia might be possible.
DeleteI remember isolation units in the 1970s. Nurses reused gowns and masks. These were color coded yellow and put in a special bin. Housekeeping picked them up at a special time and sterilized them separately from regular laundry. Cleaned reuseables had to be inspected by hand for tears and leaks. Bins had to be specially cleaned and returned to the floor.
DeleteReusing meant more people handling items, hence more risk to more people. Slip-ups in the protocols--from room to laundry and back again--could cause unexpected spread.
Gowning up was often a two-person, lengthy procedure, one person spotting the other to make sure gloves were tucked into sleeves, masks tight, etc. De-gowning out of isolation was time consuming and slowed care. Usually a nurse's patient load was cut when she had patients in isolation.
I basically think reusing is a good idea, but hospital laundries are no longer equipped to handle the amount of gowns and masks required by something like this. The ability to recycle on a large scale like this is probably not there.
Back when Bush was president (although it wasn't strictly his fault) there was a bit of black humor going around the Pentagon: A general in a hot war was running out of supplies, so he called the Pentagon to ask where they were. They were on back order, he was told. Where, he asked. In the country you are fighting, he was told.
DeleteIn the New York Times yesterday Farhad Majoo asked why we are running out of masks and found the answer is: the countries that make them for us, starting with China. stopped shipping them to deal with their own cases.
I don't know if there is anything to it, but there is a rumor floating around that there are contagious containment supplies from the Clinton or Obama administrations sitting forgotten in government storage somewhere. Would be past their shelf life, but do masks and such have a shelf life?
DeleteI had thought probably that was the case, that China made the masks and needed them at home. Let that be a lesson to us about outsourcing everything. Particularly medical stuff.
Katherine, old masks better than none.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/coronavirus-national-cathedral-donates-masks-trnd/index.html