It is Friday and Fridays are for fun. I have been doing my grocery shopping in person during the pandemic. Each week there is a new surprise. I took the picture when there wasn’t a lot of bread on the shelves but as you can see there was plenty of bread. This week there wasn’t much in the way of toilet paper and I couldn’t find any Brussel sprouts.
Last year it was hard to get some cleaning supplies and the year before that masks and hand sanitizer were hard to find and mostly not available. I would stock up on a few things but it is hard to anticipate which shelves will be empty the next time we want something.
Empty shelves are sometimes attributed to vague supply chain issues and more recently bad weather has been blamed and so have worker shortages. We were warned before Christmas to shop early because of shortages. That seemed like a kind of manufactured shortage and I don’t think it ever materialized. It is as if someone was trying to create a buying frenzy before Christmas.
Bare shelves make me realize that there is a difference between needs and wants. We have all the food we need but are missing some items that we want.
Yet seeing empty shelves is kind of scary too. It isn’t something I am used to or have ever really experienced.
One week frozen foods are missing and the next it is bread. I have learned to buy a little extra of the essentials like peanut butter and as long as I have flour and yeast I can make bread.
