The Peasant and the Nest Robber, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568
"I'll know for sure that it's safe to reopen the economy when toilet paper once again becomes a pedestrian purchase."

I feel increasingly like an old dog struggling to learn new tricks. Never that adaptable, I change when forced to and struggle to shift my studied routines. I've long considered myself an expert shopper. I hang around a supermarket's periphery, avoiding the central aisles. I hover longer in the produce section than in any other. I'm not embarrassed to exit without purchasing anything if the stuff I came to buy isn't available. Unavailability has over the past month become the new defining characteristic of shopping here. Whole aisles of empty shelves greet the aspiring shopper. Combined with the face masks and the continual Corona Veers, where erstwhile shoppers inevitably fail to maintain six feet of distance from their suspicious-looking fellows, perusing a minefield might prove more satisfying.

I'm growing to realize that selecting and purchasing amounts to something less than half of grocery shopping's allure. The opportunity to find myself absolutely surrounded by plenty, by a tenacious more-than-enough, provides its own return, even if eighty percent of that plenty seems comprised of absolute crap I'd never personally consent to buy. I feel reassured by the floor to ceiling displays of Coca-Cola half cases spelling out the home team's name on game days and the aisles of freezer cases disappearing into a misty distance, though I never wander down there. In the old, pre-Pandemic days, I'd stroll right by ninety-nine percent of everything, but absorb a certain vitality from its proximity. I'd snatch my usual batch of carefully selected treasures, and look down my severe nose at what others selected as I'd wait my turn to check myself out in public. I fancied myself a superior self-checker, too.

Now, I enter with dread, having fixed my face mask securely to my head. I reach for the hand sanitizer upon entry and feel abandoned when I find the dispenser empty (again). I leave my own reusable shopping bags in the car, having survived enough troubled stares when I'd carry them inside. The produce aisles seem hit or miss now, with glaring emptiness and that annoying thinness of display that screams, "Only half the shipment arrived today." My old favorites only semi-represented, and many of those present seem glaringly substandard. I try to remain picky, but I find that I must choose something. I've become more of a snatcher now, by which I mean that if I see something I can even distantly imagine using, I grab it while it's there. It might not be there tomorrow, or ever again.

Last week, I declined an opportunity to buy some of that gossamer-thin toilet paper The Muse despises. I hold regrets because that might have been the last toilet paper I'll get access to this quarter, and our supplies seem alarmingly low. The fresh fish case seems largely unaffected by shortage, and I suspect that many suspect that unwrapped products have become suspect. I'm more wary of the pre-packaged portions. Who knows under what conditions they were sealed? I still move quickly through the baked goods section, though I did tarry long enough to buy a single loaf early in our isolation. That loaf proved to be savory cake, too sweet by half, and lacking crumb, suitable for squeezing into little flickable bits but hardly eatable. More than half of that loaf went to the magpies out back, and they grumbled over it.

I can't (yet) shop for an entire week in a single stop. I still buy more components than plan ahead for complete meals. I buy flexibility, though my choices seem increasingly limited. Even beans are scarce, though I did manage to score some garbanzos, a welcome if troublesome addition. 'Banzos' take a day and a half to cook at this altitude.

I have become grateful for the drive-in liquor store, though the clerks there struggle to find my one of ten thousand kinds of beer they stock. They disappear for many long minutes back into the beer cave I once reveled in walking through, to locate the oddly-named brew I've asked for. It's downright painful to witness, though I need to wear no mask when transacting there. The home larder's showing definite gaps in its usual plenty, though I'm growing accustomed to doing without. Substitutions abound now, producing odd entrees and curious side dishes. On any given day, little of something's sure to remain, and I won't be able to face the ordeal required to resupply. I can report that we're somehow still getting by in spite of it all.

I'll know for sure that it's safe to reopen the economy when toilet paper once again becomes a pedestrian purchase.

©2020 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #WhatNow?, #PureSchmaltz