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Our grandson had a day-patient operation yesterday. It was planned. It was a general anaesthetic event. And some pain killers were necessary to see him through the following few days. An “over the counter” standard child’s neurofen liquid in a bottle always available.
Until yesterday.
Our daughter tried a number of different chemists and chemists within supermarkets. Nothing. So she ended up taking a half-used bottle we keep in our cupboard for the wee ones.
I have read about “stock piling” and “panic buying”.
We have never felt the need to fill our home with stuff. Because even if we have to self-isolate we have friends and family around. And just as we would go shopping for them so they would for us – so why the need for us to become a mini-warehouse just in case?
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But yesterday stopped me in my tracks.
We cannot be the only family in which one needs something now rather than “just in case”. There must be thousands and thousands of young and old who need one toilet roll, one bottle of neorofen, one packet of pasta (!!!!), one of this and one of that …
But never in my entire life have I known an IMPOSED toilet paper shortage – nor an everyday over the counter painkiller shortage – nor ever(!!!) a shortage of pasta! And what I do see today is a young grandson who may be in pain because “we” need it (even though “we” don’t and probably never will).
So my question is this.
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WHY stock pile/panic buy/stock up (ever so reasonably) when you have even just one friend … one family member … one neighbour … one acquaintance … ? WOULD you not help that one friend, one family member, one neighbour, one acquaintance if they were without? OF COURSE you would.
For me it is that simple.
It’s called love … community … compassion … kindness … common-sense!
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Just me being curious 
We’re the same here, yesterday we went to a local low-cost grocers for bottled water for our church fish fry, they were limiting everyone to two cases because of the rush.
I blame the media. They live for disasters, even if they have to manufacture one out of nothing. Yes, CV is a thing, but it has infected and killed fewer people than this season’s flu. They don’t care if they create a panic, or if there are shortages because people worry unnecessarily due to their over coverage. In fact, they just gives them more to report. Worldwide they have created panic, shortages, a crashing stock market, and they revel in it, giving them more to report, creating the situation even worse, but, for them, it’s all good.
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“I blame the media.”
I used to – but I think we are each to blame. We choose to be influenced by all the 24/7 noise, we won’t leave our phones at home in case we miss anything or need something, we regard the fact we can afford something as entitlement to never be without. The media follows money and audiences – and we individually are both.
And yet … there is so much goodness here, so much kindness, so much stuff we don’t see or look for when we are focused on grabbing the last bale of toilet rolls (remember newspaper – when I was a youngster it wasn’t just chips – french fries – that were wrapped in newspaper!) 🙂
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