Hoarding* is a strange thing. You see dozens of other people rushing for toilet paper and you think, “Gosh, should I be stocking up on toilet paper?” You see canned goods all gone and you think, “Should I buy a bunch of canned goods?” –which, for me, are ordinarily only used as a last-minute veggie or ingredients to a larger dish. You see flour gone and you think, “Do I have enough flour?” –despite knowing for a fact you have a 12-pound bag of flour in your deep freezer.
*I’m not even sure hoarding is even the right word here. Stockpiling? Stashing? Band wagoning?
I knew when all this started to go down that I had enough meals for at least two weeks.
I plan my dinner menu for two weeks out, go shopping every other week, and there are many times I improvise and manage to skip the grocery store run an extra week. In other words, I have plenty.
More than enough.
Yet as I joined the masses over a week ago*, mostly to witness the hysteria, a little to buy some extra food items, the thought crossed my mind, “Do I have enough food for three meals a day for a month? Do I have enough breakfast items? –when breakfast normally for me consists of only a cup of coffee. Do I have lunch items? What if I don’t have enough for three square meals a day?
*Yes, before all the curfews and stay-at-home orders even began.
First world problems…am I right?
As I walked the grocery store aisles, I was a little upset with our society. Clearly the hoarding wasn’t a desperation kind of hoarding because pasta made with chick peas was still on the shelves, in abundance. The cans of tuna fish were untouched. Several varieties of canned tomatoes were available along with the organic canned soups. All the chicken and beef were gone, but the frozen shrimp and cod were available.
But panic is about as strange a thing as hoarding. Perhaps they are even relatives. Knowing that I couldn’t get flour made me feel like I needed to find flour. Despite the aforementioned 12-pound bag*.
*I did not, by the way, find any flour, even after breaking down and going to the King Arthur website**.
**But, my Mom did (though the pickings were slim) during her weekly grocery store run. It is my promise to myself to make good use of it and to make sure I don’t leave it as an unused hoarding trophy on the shelf.
Not knowing the future exasperates such feelings. I knew I had enough flour for two weeks, but couldn’t be certain if I would for a month. Or two.
The way this thing is being talked about, I imagine eventually needing to ration out the chickpea pasta and tuna fish equivalents in my own pantry: the oats I use only when making oatmeal cookies, the can of sweet potatoes I meant to make a sweet potato pie with two Thanksgivings ago, the minute-rice I bought because a recipe I use maybe once a year calls for it.
I wish I had an answer or a revelation to any of this, but these are simply my unfiltered thoughts, as promised, shared from the journal I am keeping on the events taking place around us.
What I do know is this, despite all this uncertainty, greater are the things which remain than those which should invoke fear.
I have food and if I run out, I can go get more.
I am with my loved ones, and not separate.
I can go for a walk and breathe fresh air.
I have access to internet, television, and all the basic comforts of life which I often take for granted.
I am home, and able to accomplish things ignored when I was free to be out of the house all the time.
I am healthy, and let the future of my health rest in the hands of my creator.
These are the things I will think on when uncertainty overwhelms.
How about you? Tell me something good* you are focusing on right now.
*Commence with singing of Chaka Khan’s Tell Me Something Good.
Note: All pictures in this post were taken over a week ago. They are not meant to invoke fear, but to document these strange times. Many of these items have been restocked and are available in your local stores.
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