The coronavirus threat is real. How do we know? ... Wal-Mart is out of toilet paper
The assignment: Buy toilet paper at Wal-Mart, which is akin to surviving 12 zombie apocalypses.
As social media erupts by the minute with new videos and pictures of consumers destroying store shelves, and each other, to remain Zestfully clean, I was assigned to witness the corona-carnage over toilet paper.
If attending the Texas Rangers home opener is currently unsafe for fear of coronavirus, I want hazard pay for walking into a Wal-Mart to buy toilet paper. I’m surprised I’m not already dead.
Not even Lloyds of London would insure me for this because, if the virus does not get us, buying toilet paper right now will. Indiana Jones wouldn’t have done this.
I walked into the Wal-Mart in southwest Fort Worth on Friday unsure if the rumors were true.
Not only are the rumors of toilet paper chaos true, they are so frighteningly us. For places like Target and Wal-Mart, it’s a CoronaChristmas.
Sporting events, Broadway shows and gatherings of people of more than 100 are deemed unsafe and are all closed, but a store that sells a bar of soap is not only safe but offers extended holiday-shopping hours to thousands of customers.
Buying toilet paper right now is a wonderful slice of Americana: panic-driven purchasing because everyone else is doing it.
“We’re gonna’ take care of it. Calm down,” the Wal-Mart employee instructed consumers as they moved their shopping carts of full of bottled water, and Fritos, toward the toilet paper.
“It’s a limit of one per person. You can’t get two different brands.”
Feeding time at the zoo.
The employee was quite nervous as I watched the vultures clean the carcass clean of fresh rolls as the toilet paper was unloaded from the skid to the shelf. The only other time I’ve seen something like this was a pack of piranhas going to work on Animal Planet.
She told me that they’ve sold about one month’s worth of toilet paper in the last three days.
Of course, this wasn’t just any toilet paper. This stuff is high grade. Angel Soft. Two-ply.
The street value for a box of this paper is worth a semester of private school for your kid, who now may never return to school again.
Don’t bother looking for Charmin. Can’t get it. A container of four is going for $38.99 on EBay. (Not a joke.)
Why didn’t I buy stock in the company that makes Charmin? Procter and Gamble stock has jumped $8 in a day. (Not a joke.)
Ten feet down from the Angel Soft sat stacks of unsold Scott toilet paper.
Scott, get it together.
If you can’t sell toilet paper now, in this dream seller’s market, time to get out of the game. Wal-Mart’s shelves were virtually empty of all toilet paper, but Scott tissue.
Uncle Sam’s butt has standards, and we don’t do single-ply.
One aisle down are the cleaning products. Virtually all of the major items were gone, including furniture polish. You never know; the dusty picture of grandma might just be the thing that gets you.
As I courageously moved towards the grocery section, I could hear a mom trying to contain her two teenage kids with the promise of, “If you two don’t stop it I’m going to send you to the [bleeping] car!”
Good news, mom. You get them at home for two more weeks of “spring break.”
This condoned-parental threat was the only sound that could drown out the soothing white noise of the omnipresent crying babies throughout the store.
In the grocery section I also learned the items we all need to prepare for this self-quarantine include Cocoa Pebbles, Oreos, Coke, Diet Coke, Tostitos and, of course, milk.
You don’t even need the milk, but it’s the item that you will die without.
On the way out, I bought one of the last remaining bottles of Advil.
As I was leaving, a woman and her two kids stopped me to ask where I found the pain reliever; suddenly my corona-anxiety was gone as I now know I pass for a Wal-Mart greeter.
We live in an uncertain time, and our personal shelves are stocked with fear.
Our actions in the last 72 hours have illustrated our greatest fear: It’s not the coronavirus, but sitting down on the john only to see we are out of toilet paper.
