Welcome to the Jason Voorhees Day edition of the Covid Files!
Passed the Stop & Shop and liquor store today…Haven’t seen that many perishables paired with bad wine and vodka since college.
WTF people it’s a viral pandemic not a weekend bender
When I went inside it was exactly the kind of apoclyptic shit show you would expect it to be, here’s the rundown:
Fruits and veggies: you know what’s gone? all the shit that doesn’t keep long. Want berries? gone. Lettuce? gone. But fruits and veggies with a good shelf life? More than enough potatoes, onions, apples, carrots, etc.
Health food aisle: pretty full. no all natural peanut butter or beans but most of the other staple items where there. Not a great selection but good enough
Deli section: Fancy hard cheeses and hard sausages that keep forever? Check. The shit that needs to be sliced for you and stays good for like 2 days? 20+ people deep waiting and there wasn’t much in the case to look at either.
Junk food aisles: cleaned the fuck out. Forget the Freshman-15 it’s going to the be Quarantine-15, or 45 as the case may be.
Cereal aisle: All the sugary shit was gone. Cherrios and Chex name brands were gone but the generics you could still find if you looked behind shit. The other healthy stuff like Grape Nuts and all the oatmeal? Yeah, no problems there, plenty of that.
Drinks aisle: All the bottled “juices”? Gone. Shitty cheap coffee? Gone. Lipton Tea? Gone. But, if you wanted to buy anything that wouldn’t taste like piss-water you were in luck.
Baking aisle: A run on flour and sugar. OK, that I get. There’s a lot you can do with it. But considering all the cake mix and related sweets stuff was gone, my guess is the run on four was to make sweets not to make breads since there was still some yeast to be had. The baking aisle also includes the herbs and spices. While salt was no where to be found pretty much anything else to make your cooking taste good was somewhere, though black pepper, galic, basil and paprika left something to be desired so at least someone has heard of seasoning their fucking food.
Ethnic aisle: Take this breakdown as being as generic as possible, it’s where you find Jewish, Asian, Mexican/Latin, Eastern European and related types of food and other than the obvious “taco” and “nachos” related stuff as well as all the Goya canned goods being cleaned out most of the rest was there. Time to stock up on Matzo and canned squid people!
Canned goods aisle: Cleaned out. Well, mostly, I was actually surprised I could get red beans (for red beans and rice, tonights fucking dinner man, bring it on!) and some name brand tuna. No sardines which was a little bit of a disappointment but they don’t usually have a deep stock of them anyhow.
Grains aisle: mostly cleaned out. You know what you can find though? Brown and wild rice. Go figure. Of course I got the brown rice (did I mention we’re having red beans and rice?).
Pasta aisle: mostly cleaned out. You know what you can find? whole canned tomatoes and the non-semolina, alternative flour pasta as well as jarred hot and sweet peppers. Of course I got the hot peppers (we’re having red beans and rice bitches!).
Condiments aisle: No ketchup. No mayo. No BBQ sauce. No yellow mustard. And some of the salad dressings are gone. But, for the most part you need oil and vinegar, mustard, hot sauce and the like you were pretty good. I’ve seen college kids eat condiments in a pinch so I’m not sure why this isn’t cleaned out? Hot sauce is done as a 1 gallon Franks Red Hot. That should last a six weeks (and again, dude, we’re having red beans and rice).
Other Drinks aisle: flat water of any kind is gone, but seltzer you could still find. Fizzy must not be desirable. The cold beer stock was pretty good too surprisingly. Maybe cuz everyone was buying the shitty wine next door.
Pets aisle: didn’t go down but it wasn’t cleaned out
Paper goods: cleaned the fuck out. People must be ready to wipe their ass with paper plates at this point too.
Cleaning aisle: Dude, bar soap works to you fucknuts. Anything liquid was gone but surprisingly there was a good selection of other stuff … best bargains other than bar soap? gloves and dry wipes.
Personal health: people are NOT brushing their teeth because there was a lot of inexpensive toothpaste, although our usual was out. And not fucking responsibly either because there was a great selection of condoms. And not wearing deodorant either, that was fully stocked. Meds, vitimines and suppliments were hit or miss as were feminine products, shower products and baby products … other than vasoline (maybe that’s why there’s so many condoms???)
Meat and Fish cases: cleaned the fuck out man. People must have massive fucking freezers somewhere cuz that shit ain’t gonna last otherwise.
Preparred Frozen: cleaned the fuck out. People even bought those gas station brand frozen burittos. That must be why everyone needs so much fucking TP for their bungholes.
Other frozen: Can’t get frozen peas or corn or strawberries and some of the usual staples in the vegitarian goods were gone but for the most part this was surprisingly stocked. I survived for many lean-income years on 1-lb bags of mixed, frozen veggies. This is a way overlooked staple.
Dairy case: cleaned the fuck out.
Breads and Spreads: cleaned the fuck out other than a couple of the specialty whole grain stuff, Dave’s Killer Breads all the way man, and a couple of fancy preserves like the blackberry stuff I really like.
Checkout: You know what I don’t understand? Why isn’t there a lane for people using the scan-guns separate from everyone else? Seriously, it’s all scanned and bagged and we just need to pay why am I standing in line with a bunch of self-checkout dipshits that can’t find the UPC on their item or know how to place it on the belt, or how to bag efficiently once they’re done. And, there’s so many of them. If you’re not going to give the scan-gun people something separate the least you could do for everyone is to have some kind of proof-of-not-being-a-fucking-moron pre-check for people that want to use the self-checkouts because all it’s doing it making EVERYONE’S live more difficult by allowing them to try. It’s not good for the staff. It’s not good for the fellow shoppers. And despite their ascertion otherwise, it’s not good for the end user either. Anyway…
The hype of over-shopping and hoarding is stupid.
First, it fucks people who are already living pay-check to pay-check out of their necessities. Here’s an example to get you started: Everyone knows beans are a great pantry item that you should have on hand for emergencies but let’s be honest, for the average person, how many bean dishes are they making in any given week? Month? Six months? The 20 of cans of black beans you just bought is literally going to take you six months to eat even in a state of emergency. And, you’re showing your privledge buying them in bulk. Meanwhile, some cash strapped families depend on those beans for their weekly meals. It’s one of their main sources of protein and fiber. And, while you see it as cheep, they find might struggle just to purchase a week at a time of them for their families. Your cleaning out the shelves of those beans means that family might not eat since they can’t afford to buy in bulk in advance and now can’t even find them buying paycheck-to-paycheck. Your hoarding something you don’t even usually eat is literally taking the food out of someone’s mouth right now. What’s worse, is there’s a good chance you’re still collecting your salary, meanwhile the working poor dependent on those beans are having their hourly wages cut drastically if not being furloughed and no longer earning a paycheck. You’re fucking them long term because even if they could make an attempt to prepare for the inevidable lack of income you’ve stolen even that opportunity from them, just so you can donate all those uneaten cans after they expire to some food pantry in an attempt to feel good about yourself. You’re a fucking asshole and need to stop. Now.
Second, it fucks with people who have special needs. Buying a tonne of shit you don’t usually eat just because you want to have “something” on hand fucks people that depend on those speciality item when they need them. Don’t buy oat milk or other non-dairy products just because you heard they have good shelf lives when there are people who have legit reasons for needing those non-dairy substitutes. While it would be fantastic if we could all transition toward oat and other alternatives now is not the time to stress the system with a forced change. Give those who are dependent on these items the ability to survive during these trying times
Finally, it fucks the the supply chain which fucks everyone. The general recommendation is that if you have the means, you buy a little more than necessary over time so you have a 2-week to 2-month stock of household staples on hand in the case of emergencies and then regularly rotate your home stock. What the fuck were all you self-important assholes doing with your extra money this whole time? Not fucking following the recommendation that’s for sure. You had the opportunity and you fucked it up like you always do and now, being the self-centered assholes that you are you’re going to fuck everyone else just to try and save your own ass. An ass, by the way, that doesn’t deserve saving because your ass probably doesn’t need or even what half the crap you’re stocking up on and never going to use in the first place.
OK, I’m done.
I’m going to go back to my fun-for-all listening for a Friday. As cliche as it would be to do a whole horror them for the day, the nice weather combined with the desire to not have to think like an adult for the moment meant I was much happier listening to some other stuff, some good, fun stuff. So, here it goes:
On vinyl:
The Cult “Sonic Temple”
Madonna “True Blue”
Iron Maiden “Piece of Mind”
the Cure “Disintegration”
On the digitized home catalog:
Megadeth “Peace Sells…but Who’s Buying”
Anthrax “the Sound of White Noise”
Run DMC “Raising Hell”
Beastie Boys “Lisence to Ill”
Def Leppard “Hysteria”
Ozzy with Randy Rhodes “Tribute”
Chicago “Transit Authority”
Rush “Presto”
Primus “Sailing the Seas of Cheese”
And, yes, assholes, I am well aware some of these albums have pretty dystopian themes. I love that stuff, it makes me happy. I need to be happy. That grocery store was aweful. And, no amount of booze is going to change that. But, good tunes might…
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