I went grocery-shopping on Sunday and they had flour! And for the first time since this started, they had YEAST: just those little strips of three envelopes, and a limit of one little strip per customer, but they HAD them! Sugar products no longer had a purchasing limit of two per customer. Meat was still limited; they’d filled in the big empty spaces with other things so it looked less alarming, but they were bringing out just one tray of ground beef at a time. They were out of a whole bunch of the frozen chicken-nugget/strip type products, and almost the whole case was filled with the few kinds they did have (I was sentimentally glad to see they had plenty of dino-nuggets, which I would have been VERY RELIEVED TO SEE when my kids were younger). Still no hand sanitizer or sanitizing wipes, and they were out of rubbing alcohol completely again. Much better selection of pasta, but rice was low again. Almost zero crunchy taco shells (two boxes that looked smashed, that’s it), but plenty of tortillas and tortilla chips. They had SOME Ramen, but mostly the less common flavors (lime chili shrimp, soy sauce); I did get four individual packs of Roasted Chicken flavor.
A few times, I noticed my eye had been fooled by other things filling in for what should have been there. For example, in the microwave popcorn section, among a limited supply of red boxes of popcorn, the store had stocked a bunch of red boxes of Cheez-its, so the shelves looked full if you were just walking past, even though there was apparently not much of that kind of popcorn. It’s interesting to think of stores figuring out the whole psychology of keeping customers calm. I DID feel a surge of panic last time, when there was a giant empty white meat case; I DID feel somewhat less panic this time, even though I could see the space was filled in with things that wouldn’t usually be there.
Henry’s birthday is next week, and this will be our first family birthday in quarantine. I was glad to be able to get all the ingredients for the cake he wants, but also got two cake mixes Just In Case.
I am feeling more relaxed about grocery shopping, now that I’ve gotten more used to the new ways. It also helped that this time I didn’t see ANYONE not wearing a mask. (I did see two people with their masks below their noses, but progress! Progress!) I still have trouble thinking clearly or making any kind of quick decision, especially if I feel the pressure of other customers waiting; but I’ve got my main coping mechanism in place, and having a system helps considerably: I continue up the aisle, then loop around the previous aisle and come back for another chance.
I had two thinking failures on the most recent trip. One was that I saw the packets of yeast and rejoiced to see them, and I was stuck for a couple of minutes behind another customer so I had time to realize that I personally had enough yeast and did not need to buy any, and I decided not to buy any. It wasn’t until I got home that I found I had put a packet into my cart anyway, and in fact when I saw it I remembered thinking as I passed the yeast “Oh!! Waiting for that other customer almost made me forget to get a packet of that!!”
The other failure was in the toilet paper aisle. The supply has been non-existent or very low, as you know, and limited to one package per customer, and often the shelves will be filled with just one option, so I’ve become accustomed to thinking that I should get a packet of WHATEVER they have, don’t agitate about brand/size, just take one package of whatever it is. But this time they had quite a few different brands and quite a few different package sizes, and only individual rolls of our usual kind, and there were no signs up about limits but there WERE signs that said “Due to shortages, this item is out of stock,” in front of shelves that had product on them, and my brain just got completely shorted out by that whole situation, and couldn’t come up with a good plan even after I looped back around. I ended up buying two individual rolls of our usual kind, which is better than nothing, but was a weird decision. It’s like I applied “there’s still a limit even though it no longer says so” with “there are lots of choices so I can get my usual brand.”
Are you finding you’re measuring quarantine time in shopping-related ways? and/or noticing things you last bought Before Lockdown, now that you’re having to buy them again? For example, the last time I went to Target before lockdown, when school hadn’t even closed yet and we weren’t sure when it would, I bought two boxes of omeprazole, a medication I take daily; the boxes have 42 pills each, and I still had part of a box at home, so it seemed like 84 extra pills was being a LITTLE silly. BUT NO. I have opened the last box.
Or: I take evening primrose oil each night before bed. There are 75 in a bottle, and I was nearly out when I went to Target the last time, but then the Target store was also out of them. I ordered a bottle from Target online as part of my very first order, and now THAT bottle is almost gone, so I have just ordered another. We have had one bottle of evening primrose oil’s worth of lockdown.
We’ve had two birthdays in quarantine! And one more is coming up. We also made sure we had cake mix in case other items were low and the kids enjoyed adding their own sprinkles to their cupcakes. Where we live, for a limited time, the city department was taking birthday fire truck drive by requests so I requested that for my 7 yr old. As you can imagine it was very popular and they stopped taking requests almost immediately. Of course they couldn’t give you a concrete time and if they were busy they wouldn’t come but our boys loved it when one stopped by!
I have made an enjoyable game out of online grocery shopping. I ambitiously request toilet paper, flour, Lysol, a certain kind of green tea, etc., and then when it is ready I feel so surprised and joyful when I actually get it, like I have won something. I have to order it five or six days in advance, so I often forget that I have even dared to ask for it. Yesterday the lady was loading the groceries into the back of the van and I got so excited and exclaimed “Oh, I got toilet paper!!” So that was fun. Most of the lysol/sanitizer requests come back as out of stock, which does not surprise me at all. But then I get a refund, so I am happy about that as well. Basically grocery shopping is never boring to me either! Such a gamble!
My husband is the designated shopper in the family (occasionally my son will go, if he’s antsy), and it’s always fun to see what they were able to get. We’ve been doing a lot of online shopping as well. Yesterday, I ordered spices from Penzys, on the recommendation of a friend. All I really needed was taco seasoning, and they give free shipping at $39’95, so I ordered 9 other spices and spice mixes that looked interesting or that I had wanted to try. My husband asked me not to tell him what I ordered so it’ll be a surprise care package when it comes.
Your husband’s request is adorable!
We have Penzey’s here in the Twin Cities and they are an oasis of good smells. Mmmm.
I just got back from grocery store(s) and still so frazzled. Where I live ( big urban area) there are still lines at certain times to get into store. The problem is you never know WHEN there will be a line so hard to adjust my shopping time. I have no problem waiting in line, but I’d like some kind of guarantee that the store will have the items I need before spending a half hour waiting in line. Also, it’s not like I can just hop in my car and come back another time since I’m carless and rely on public transport. Also, because I do not have a car I can only buy what I can carry. In usual times that’s not an issue but now that is. My big box store today was empty-ish so that was good (and they seemed well stocked on all fronts except for that elusive-Lysol. Medium sized grocery store was a bit empty in the fresh produce/fruit section but think that was more because of the after-weekend timing rather than a shortage of anything. They had my preferred Ben & Jerry’s flavor so score! Masks were being worn pretty much consistently but people in my neighborhood DO NOT understand social distancing, or you know, basic common courtesy so that’s frustrating.
In happy quarantine shopping news from my trip last night (split between three different grocery stores): stores are looking pretty close to fully stocked again. The only thing that I need that I have not for the life of me been able to find since March is color safe bleach. I need the All unscented brand and it hasn’t been there since at least the beginning of March.
In unhappy quarantine news: I feel like people are getting complacent, now that our state is easing up on restrictions. In the third store I went to (big national chain), I swear I saw fewer people with masks on than the last time I went two weeks ago. Adorably, I did see several parent/child tandems with the kids wearing age/size appropriate masks. I wanted to go over and tell the parents they were doing a good job, but that probably would have been weird. Plus social distancing requirements. ;)
I am so glad you posted about this again! I went to the grocery store on Friday and then… had nowhere to share my thoughts (my husband is somehow ???? uninterested ???? in grocery store item availability????). We TOO had yeast, one per customer, in the three packs. I grabbed a pack. The flour section was still very bare, but there WAS flour, and sugar was fairly plentiful. I am super envious of your abundance of chicken dinos; my daughter eats them and we haven’t had any in a long while; I have been getting other sorts of nuggety things that she eats and doesn’t complain about but I much prefer paying more for dino shapes, I guess. The pasta and canned beans sections are still very bare, but there was penne, which I bought. So far we haven’t had any huge meat shortages at my local grocery store. I suppose they are coming, so I keep buying one package each of the meats we eat most often. Milk and cheese, which were bare for a while, seem back to normal. Frozen pancakes are back in stock. Frozen fruit is still weird — only one brand, and one I had never seen before the pandemic — but it is abundant.
I am still not accustomed to spending so much money on groceries all at once. It makes sense that I am spending double my previous grocery tab, since I am going half as often. But it is still startling.
Oh! There was also a lot of toilet paper. No posted limit. Like you, I got a little befuddled by more choices. I don’t even think I checked prices or brands, I just grabbed a six pack and tossed it in my cart. I don’t think I will ever be able to go to a store and NOT buy toilet paper again.
There was no hand sanitizer, and hand soap was still low. But there was a whole section of bleach spray, so I grabbed a bottle of that, too.
Yes on the huge grocery bills! I hadn’t realized how much money we’d been spending on eating out / ordering in, plus I went to the grocery store at least a couple of times a week. Now that we’re making almost all our food at home and I only go about once a week to week-and-a-half, my grocery bills have, in the highest instance, more than tripled!
By contrast, since I buy groceries but it’s my husband that always wants to go out or order in so he’s paid when we do, he has been talking of how small his credit card bills have become in a somewhat marvelling tone. Well yeah, because restaurant food is expensive, and now I’m picking up all the slack by buying and cooking ingredients! Mind you, the pandemic has meant a huge income drop for him and my paycheque has been stable, so the shift in spending money on food seems appropriate. Plus I know that overall the household is spending less.
I went to the grocery early Sunday morning. So few mask-wearers!!! That made me nervous. This was my first trip in three weeks–I had been using the curbside pick up. So I did note that toilet paper seemed to be well-stocked. The meat was in pretty good shape. We got some off-brand spray hand sanitizer! There were some cleaning supplies but no Clorox wipes.
Here in Washington we have moved to “Phase 2” which is supposed to be a let’s see baby step with lots of precautions, and at the store it was very apparent that many people were taking it as “yay everything is fine and normal.” So many bare faces. So crowded. Two men shopping together and literally pushing me in the aisle. (You better believe I told them what I thought; they just looked bewildered that I might not want their hands on me.) I wish I could have left but I needed the food and I am trying to go only one place per week. I’m so grateful that I got what I needed, though.
I haven’t been to the grocery store in a while. Eight days, I think. But I have an unforeseen pandemic grocery problem. When I went, the weather was still pretty cool in my area. Highs in the 60s most days, sometimes cooler. Since then, it has hit the 90s, and all my food requires fairly intensive cooking (like 45 min, which is a long time for me anyway). That’s the last thing I want to do in this weather! I still have at least a week or maybe two before I have to go back for food, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it that long before I go back for things that don’t require so much time standing next to the stove.
Before the pandemic I had no idea how long it took to go through things like dishwasher soap, shower soap and toothpaste. I never used to have a back up of every essential. I also no longer use paper towels but have switched to washable and reusable old t shirt scraps that we have an endless supply of. So many little things I think will change for the rest of our lives. I am on my last month of a three month supply of medication. I picked it the day before our state locked down. I remember thinking that when I needed it again I could probably go get it but now that the time has come, I’m looking into the pharmacy’s mail order option. Technically I could go but there’s literally hundreds of sick people in a few miles radius of me. Just the thought of walking in there makes me itchy.
Yes! I bought two bottles of my daily allergy meds and am about to run out, and had the same thought. When I bought them, it seemed so excessive; obviously this was going to last me way past the end of All This. Nope.
My dog and I take the same allergy meds, and he gets two per day, plus one of my kids is supposed to be taking it as well. I have some doubts about the kid’s consistency, but in any case, those bottles of 365 don’t last the way the manufacturer expects.
There was all purpose flour today! Several brands even!
I find I’m measuring the time in things like grooming. My son, husband and I are all on our second round of haircuts since this started (fortunately I’ve cut my own and the kids’ for years, and had all the tools necessary). The galaxy hair colouring I did when I realized I wasn’t going into the office of blue and red have faded and there’s not really any blue left and the red is now pink. I don’t shave my legs, I use an epilator about once a month, and I’m in need of a third round soon. We had to get out the grooming tools and do our dog (again, I was lucky I already owned them).
The warm weather brought some shifts too. I’m making less soup and buying more salad; there are fewer things-in-sauce on the menu and a lot more grilled stuff. I think I was vaguely thinking that by the time we opened our pool we could have friends over to swim and nope, we’re not there yet. We might risk it for ourselves, but we have aging parents with risk factors and we need to be able to provide them with help when they need it (staying outside their house – things like getting their screened-in porch ready for them for the summer, mowing lawns, etc.), so we still feel we need to limit our exposure significantly. And not to be a downer, but we’ve even started to wonder if we’ll even be able to celebrate Christmas with them this year, since it would mean being in an enclosed space together for multiple hours.
Yes! The holiday planning! My friends think I’m ridiculous, but I feel like I need to start figuring out how or if we can make holidays work if the kids are in school in person at all. I think I’ll have to pull them and do distance learning from the beginning of November until the end of winter break so that we have time to quarantine from school, quarantine from my husband’s family, and then quarantine from my family. It makes me tired just thinking about it!