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Sunday, April 5, 2020

Trip to Town


My lovely wife needed her meds from the pharmacy in town. Unfortunately, her prescription is heavily regulated and she can only have a 30 day supply. That forces us to go to the pharmacy at least once a month.

I grabbed my face mask, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and headed off to run errands. First stop was at a property my daughter owns. It’s currently empty. My friends who have a sugar house dropped off a gallon of maple syrup in the morning. I picked it up in the afternoon. They take payment on-line with PayPal. They’ve worked out ways to sell their product without physically dealing with people.

Then I went into the Pharmacy. Not a single person there, employees or customers, had any sort of protective gear on. It felt a little weird to be the only one taking it seriously.

The grocery store was a little different. About 40% of the customers had masks on. The employees were a mixed bag. Some were fully protected. Others had nothing.

Dairy was pretty sparse. I got some Swiss cheese, fancy butter, and a quart of whole milk. There were no eggs, paper products or sanitizer. Way in the back of the meat cooler was one large package of ground beef, some chicken thighs and a few pork cuts. There was also chicken sausage. Apparently that’s not a popular item as there was a good selection. The only bacon left was no name low salt -which I happen to like anyway.

This is going to go on at least well into summer, no matter what the US government is saying. Don’t be surprised by that. They’ve been changing their story from day to day since this started. Canada is telling its citizens to expect this to go at least until the end of July. Prepare for the long haul. A good part of this is going to be mental. Don’t think of yourself as stuck at home. Think of yourself as being safe at home.

-Sixbears

12 comments:

  1. According to the grapevine, suppliers are trying to up the price of eggs 300%. Some stores simply quit stocking them. I guess they think they can get it between hoarders and the Easter holiday. I hope it backfires on the ones doing the gouging and they get left with too many eggs.

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    1. That's interesting. Last week my lovely wife bought the high priced fancy eggs as the regular ones were almost the same price.

      I've got some dehydrated eggs that will get me through my cooking needs for a bit. I'm also pretty good at cooking without eggs.

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  2. Sounds like my last trip out, I'd say about 40% of the folks were wearing PPE. The pharmacy staff were all wearing it. The little café at the Pharmacy was shut down for dining, carry out only. At the Kroger they had everything I need, the egg cooler only had one brand of egg they normally have about 6.

    A coworker had dropped bye the house earlier he told me the his daughter's senior prom had been canceled. She was very disappointed she had a beautiful dress already and now it would hang in the closet.

    Keep the faith, and live prepared. God Bless us all.

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    1. We live in interesting times, that's for sure.

      I was really surprised to see the local pharmacy wasn't wearing anything. Used enough disinfectant on the bottle to wash half the writing off it.

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  3. Kathy and I both made a run on Publix the other day. Experiencing similar amounts of PPE. We both wore masks.
    I went early in the morning to a store in the part of town that has mostly middle income type housing surrounding. We were mostly after fresh meats. On my run it was limited to two items of each type meat. Turned out that with chicken only giant size bags of whole legs and bags of breasts. So got one of each as allowed. A shit ton of chicken , like probably twenty pounds worth. You'd think they'd break it down into smaller portions but my gain I guess...no pork, no burger, but had like ten pound prime rump roast $35 each. I got one and she cut it up into several human size steaks lol. Canned veggies were limited to two cans period. No limit for fresh stuff. Eggs were plentiful but expensive.
    She went to the Publix out by the zoo, which is in the upper middle class area. Had no trouble buying fish, sausage and bacon there.
    Neither store had TP lol, of course not an issue for us, as we long ago stocked plenty of that commodity. Every prepper knows better about that stuff lol.
    Bet bidets will become a hot seller after this...
    She insists on continuing to work. Which is not all bad, as there is no one around other than the other keepers and they all avoid each other. So that's good.
    Drawing unemployment , I hear is a joke. As you cannot access the system because of the overload. I'm sure that will rectify with time. Pity those not wise enough to have a cash reserve. Don't tell me the poor can't save ! Hell , if Bison has a reserve and I do , then anyone can. Pretty much anyone, anyway. Granted there always is the exception, it just should not be the norm as it is !

    All is well at the Spud compound

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    1. Glad to hear you guys are well.

      It's interesting to hear what's going on in other places. The news doesn't give a clear picture -imagine that!

      Maine just shut its borders to non residents. I'm guessing they are trying to keep out the summer people. Not sure how that's going to work out. I'd be pretty pissed if I paid taxes on a summer home in Maine for years, only to be unable to go there when I really want to. On the other hand, Maine can't handle huge numbers of infected people.

      Funny thing about actual cash -people around here don't want it. Cash can carry the virus. Right now they want electronic payments. It was a PITA to activate my old PayPal account. Had not used it in ages.

      Last week we got a big roast. The freezer is full of left overs. I'm about at my limit of fresh food in case the grid goes down. Can manage with solar, my small fridge/freezer and my special cold water coil in the kitchen fridge.

      Mentally prepared for the long haul.

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    2. Yeah , I'm doing the same the few times I've went out to get something used a card cuz I don't want others cash.
      Paranoia high all around.

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    3. If you are paranoid you probably have the right attitude.

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  4. I've got many #10 cans of Mtn House freeze dried foods that I bought off a Craigslist ad that a guy had purchased just prior to Y2K. Along with additional foods purchased and stockpiled over 2005 to 2012. It's my kids living in Big D that I'm worried about. A few weeks of no income/no job is going to bring out the worst in folks. Crime will skyrocket.
    IMHO

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    1. Cities are bad, but it's probably too late to flee to the country. At least it is around here in New England.

      They better get money into people's hands darn soon if they don't want fighting in the streets.

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    2. Good thing y'all hightailed it. Florida is running off all non resident visitors. With roadblocks on all incoming traffic.

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    3. When I left I was an alarmist. By the time I got home I looked like Nostradamas. Hard to believe it's been less than a month.

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