Everyone has gone crazy panic buying. There is no fuel at any service stations, except reserves for emergency vehicles. There was word that trucks might have been delayed with the flood (they either were for a few hours, or had half-stock deliveries which wasn't too bad), so it seems like everyone has decided they need to go and fill their houses with food for some irrational reason. I have enough petrol to last me til Sunday or Monday, I filled up my tank yesterday but unfortunately with three trips to work and back, it will use all that up pretty swiftly (My tank is small, obviously).
(Note: I would have a different opinion had I been living in some of the worser off parts of Queensland, but I live in a part that was only very minimally hit, therefore there is NO reason for people to be behaving like this!).
My best friend said she saw a lady buying 20 loaves of bread at the supermarket yesterday. TWENTY. I must be strange, because if it so happened that the truck didn't make it and I couldn't get bread for a few days, I'd just sort something else out. I'd eat a wrap, use rice-cakes. Goodness, if it were carbs I was seriously after, I'd boil some pasta if I was desperate!
There were people stocking up on tinned food at Aldi, trolleys full. Seriously! Again, I'd understand if we were in a part that had been hit bad by flooding, but we're not! These people are going to open their pantries next week, look in and go 'Why the HELL did I buy fifteen tins of fruit salad and pumpkin soup?'.
I just don't get it. People make the situation worse when they do this, it makes possible shortages a reality, not because the food can't make it here, but because people don't think rationally.
The only thing I can hope for is that SOME of that food was indeed being bought for donations to be sent to the parts that actually need food - now THAT would make me happier!
I am hoping that the farmers market will be up and running on Saturday but I have my doubts. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
On a completely different note, DF and I finally bought a 2011 wall-calender. I think it's pretty funky. It's a DIY decoration one. It's black card, which means you have to write on it with those metallic gel pens (which we already had) and each month has a space where you can put photos or drawings.
And I bought a new diary for 2011. I like to be organised, but it took me a couple of weeks to find one that I liked. This one has on the cover 'Keep Calm & Stop Carrying On' in bold letters. It's very 'me'.
And, finally, our wedding rings are ready to pick up. I told them I would pick them up tomorrow, but I might leave them until next week. So odd: I was waiting for their call, as they told me they would call when they arrived. They also told me they would take 10-14 days. Well, a month later I decided to call, just to check what was going on. At first they couldn't find any record of my name or my order, but then they obviously found it and told me the rings had been at the shop for a couple of weeks. Nice of them to call and let me know!!!
Now off to do some studying. What a change!
panic-buying
January 13th, 2011 at 05:52 am
January 13th, 2011 at 06:29 am 1294900178
I have to agree - food 'hoarding' is a big problem here in the US. I used to call every blizzard "french toast season" because with EVERY threat of any snow (even dustings) all the bread, milk and eggs would be gone from all the groceries. I mean, how many loaves of bread do you eat normally? Are you really gonna 5 loaves in 2 days? I complained about that to someone and they told me "kids". Does every family have a teenage boy?
January 13th, 2011 at 02:59 pm 1294930748
January 13th, 2011 at 05:05 pm 1294938326
January 28th, 2011 at 10:34 pm 1296254094
Jerry