Corona virus, Toilet rolls & Supermarkets

Pictured below you see empty toilet roll shelves in my local ‘Waitrose’, have you noticed the guy looking in my direction? I’d describe him as an interested spectator watching me taking photographs earlier this afternoon, funnier still a minute or so earlier, he’d ALSO been photographing these same empty supermarket shelves!

Rather self consciously I pocketed my smart phone, carried on walking, moments later pausing to exchange a perplexed friendly comment, then he said, 

Guy with the bald head: “These empty shelves, is it because of the corona virus?”

Me: “I think so…. people appear to be panic buying.”

Guy with the bald head: “Utterly bizarre!”

Me: “Yes… I couldn’t agree more.”

…………. and with that, the two of us grinning men went our separate ways to continue an evening’s grocery shopping.

I’ve a suggestion use newspapers in place of toilet roll as my great grandparents would have done, cut out photos of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson and take great pleasure and satisfaction using them to wipe your ass!

My local Waitrose this evening, notice the empty toilet tissue shelves, wtf?

Then I walk around the next isle, and there’s enough bottles of alcohol to open your own Wine Bar.

Am I missing something? Has a News story passed me by saying the world’s toilet roll producing factories are closing down? That there’s a global shortage of carboard tubing used to bind tissue paper around? Could it be when you catch Corona Virus one of the symptoms is uncontrollable diarrhea?

If you know the answer please do tell 🙂 .

I am genuinely dumbstruck, face masks and bottles of disinfectant yes, but switch on your TV, or read your browser’s News feed and whether you live in London New York or Florence Italy, the world’s Supermarket shelves are emptying of toilet loo rolls.

Uh?

Panic buying makes me angry, a distasteful spectacle of human being’s at their most ugly, displays of greed and selfishness, the hoarding of food and a total lack of respect for others. For goodness sake we have an abundance of groceries and there’s plenty enough for everyone, I’d guess one News outlet filmed an empty toilet roll shelf, people rushed to their Supermarkets, a snowball effect ensued and before you know it there’s a worldwide retail shortage of toilet rolls.

Are we witnessing globalisation at its most terrifying, a shortage in ONE retail outlet triggering a global rush for food clothing petrol whatever, or is this an evolutionary throwback to dinosaur times, when berries growing on trees came into season and bountiful and cavemen felt the sudden urge to forage for food, collect hoard and store fruit before a diplodocus hoovered them up from the forest floor.

I have to agree with my bald headed Supermarket friend, “utterly bizarre!” 

 

A. Shepherdson 2020