Good GOD, people are dumb.

I went to Sam's Club this morning.  Dropped the kids at school (last day before their Spring Break) and went straight there.  My sister had asked me to get her a mega-pack of TP since they'd just opened their last package.* 

There are no paper products left, except for those used in the dispensers--there were a few boxes of the dispenser-rolls of paper towels and some of the tri-fold ones.  No toilet paper.  No paper towels.  No Kleenex, no "facial tissue."  Nothing. 

I went back to the pharmacy section for toothbrushes...and there's plenty of bar soap left (Dial brand), but not a lot of pump soap (and what's there is limited to two per customer, now), and no hand sanitizer at all. 

I have NEVER seen Sam's Club picked that bare. 

Here's the funny thing:

Their food was fully stocked.  Soups, Ramen, canned veggies, pasta--all fully stocked.  The peanut butter was lower than usual, but that goes in cycles.  I had no issue re-stocking the household Nutella supplies.  Plenty of ground beef.  The rice was low, and so were the dried beans.**  But the easy to fix stuff that's really all you want when you feel awful?  Yeah, all there.  In massive quantity. 

Locally, there's one tested-positive Corona virus case.  She's in the next big town/small city over east of us (about an hour away), twenty years old, a college student, and newly back from a trip to Austria.  Next closest case is in St. Louis--5 or 6 hours from here on the interstate.

The university's closed, starting the Monday following Spring Break.  All classes are transitioning to online-only for at least the month of April, if not all the way through the end of the semester (there's one week left, plus finals week, after the end of April).  The state capitol is closed to tours (which we'd been planning to do next Friday).  These strike me as sensible precautions, really.  The ones most likely to bring in the Corona virus are stupid college kids catching it over Spring Break; the ones most likely to be in danger from it are our politicians, given the average age of said politicians.

But for fuck's sake, one 45-roll package of toilet paper lasts my family of four six months.  One 15-roll package of paper towels lasts, again, about six months.***  Why are people buying three or four packages of these supplies from Sam's Club, leaving the bars of soap, and not stocking up on food?  Say we do need to self-quarantine to prevent the spread of this mess.  Say it does last longer than flu season.  What the hell are these idiots going to eat?  

I'm pretty sure it won't be toilet paper, soft-soap, or paper towels. 



*The Sam's Club brand of TP, Member's Mark, is comparable in quality to the Charmin.  And there's 45 rolls in the mega-pack--5 packages of 9 rolls.  One pack usually lasts a while, but...it's never wise to not buy a new pack when you've opened your last one.  

**No toilet paper or paper towels, rice and beans low...these idiots are buying out what they think they should be getting, or what they've been told they should be getting, and leaving the things that they actually need to be getting.  And I'd be willing to bet they've got no clue how to actually cook those dried beans and rice.   


***I'm going to have to cut up some old shirts for basic cleaning rags, though.  I'm down to my last two rolls of paper towels, and those get used in heating breakfasts.