Coronavirus and Cargo Cults

It's a busy day in my little community. Today I saw two UPS trucks, an Amazon Prime van, and a Peapod truck. Then just now, a mail truck came by - we already had our normal delivery earlier in the morning, so this one was special delivery. I grew very excited.

Even when I know I didn't order anything, I always get excited when a truck drives by, especially when it slows down near my house. I feel like one of those indigenous people from Melanesia who used to do strange rituals in the hopes that a more advanced civilization would bring them consumer goods, the symbol prosperity. These native populations would build air strips, hoping planes would land, and engage in other acts of sympathetic magic. It was called Cargo Cults.

There's more consumer goods available at stores. Delivery dates are still hard to snag, and Dan likes going shopping. He wears his mask, gloves up, and doesn't dawdle. He has lately come home with so much stuff I've put my foot down and put a moratorium on salmon, chicken, and lamb chops. "I can't close the freezer door." I  complained.

I welcome the fresh produce, which we use weekly. Indeed, I'm probably getting more antioxidants and vitamins weekly than I did in an entire year before. I make fresh salads, cut up fruit, and make one pot stews with potatoes, carrots, and celery. I've made jambalaya with onions, green and red peppers, and celery, and with sausage and shrimp. The fresh produce gets used pretty quickly. So does the bread for sandwiches - both a loaf of rye and a loaf of whole wheat.

But the frozen bagels, frozen veggies, and meats have been piling up in the freezer. When Dan gets salmon, that gets made right away. So, I've declared before he can bring in any more meats and frozen goods, we've got to start using what we've got.

But paper goods are still hard to find. It's loosening up. Dan has found paper towels, tissues, and napkins. Toilet paper supplies are tighter. For the longest time, Amazon still didn't have any. I had gotten two megapacks from Walmart. And Dan snagged some at Safeway. A normal four pack.

As I once said in a blog post about supply chains, people take their social cues from the behavior of others and by visual sights. As long as paper goods aisles are bare in stores and as long as it's hard to buy online, people will hoard. So, even though I technically don't need toilet paper - I've finally used the megapack I bought hack at the end of March and I'm about to start my last megapack, which probably will last another month.

I periodically check online to see what's available even though I'm not really interested in buying. But I've noticed for a month that toilet paper still was not available for delivery. Walmart was limiting it to in store pickup. And friends were still looking for or talking about shortages. So, today, while idling surfing to see what's available, I saw Great Northern Quilted paper. A 12-pack from Amazon.

Yeah, I bought it.

I was curious and checked Walmart. They had Great Northern and Angel Soft and a few other brands. But Amazon was cheaper so I was happy with the purchase. I am not ashamed that I have turned into a semi hoarder that now buys a month in advance -  just about to open my last 12-pack, time to restock. It used to be down to my last few rolls, I'll get some over the weekend.

By the weekend they'll be gone again. I don't want to be that hoarder person. But I also don't want to be the desperate procrastinator whose neighbor has to take pity on them and lend them a roll to tide them over.

On the other hand, disinfectant is still impossible to find. Dan keeps looking for some on every shopping trip and has been for most of April. I've searched online. Just none. I've got at least another month to two month of supplies left. But if I see some soon, I'll overbuy in a minute without a second thought. Who would have thought, just two months ago, we'd all be desperate for Lysol Wipes? Or settle with pathetic gratitude for some off-brand spray bottle from China?

 We are all part of a cargo cult now. That's because our supply chains are still broken. We can now get toilet paper again because it's manufactured in America and they've ramped up supply. The chemicals for disinfectant wipes still come mostly from overseas where they are still providing for their own citizens first.

I'm wondering, if I build an airstrip, would Amazon send a drone with some Clorox?

Burning in a Fire as a Sacrifice

I can't believe it's been two months since I went into self-quarantine, battened down the hatches, and began engaging in strange behavior, like disinfecting all my groceries. Strange behavior, yet in today's world, I have a bunch of friends who would consider me recklessly odd if I didn't do that. It's been two months too since I started blogging again - really more of a vanity project to get me past the coronavirus crisis, and to leave a record maybe for future historians of what life was like during the pandemic of 2020.

That may sound grandiose. But it is exactly by poring over ordinary people's personal diaries, letters, and other contemporaneous  records that historians gain insight into what was really going on during any era.They look behind the official records, newspapers, and accounts by the leaders to examine and gain a better understanding of what life was like for the majority of common people, what the public was thinking, observing, and saying about day-to-day events. So much of what we understand about the everyday lives of ordinary people living through extraordinary events comes precisely from such diaries and correspondence.

With social media, blogs, personal journals, I hope future historians will have a rich motherload of source material to decipher and write about our era. And I hope it won't be kind to Donald Trump, the Republicans who enabled him, and to those governors who rushed to open their states before they were ready. Before they met the CDC guidelines. Before they had adequate testing. Before rates of infection were going down. We met none of the CDC metrics.

I don't think any other civilized country - any other developed or emerging nation - has been so behind the testing curve as the US. Nor has any other nation rushed to reopen while rates of infection were still rising. Let history well record that the wealthiest nation that should have been a world leader, as it had always been in the past, stumbled and failed miserably to lead, to protect even its own citizens. Instead, it asked us to sacrifice our health, our safety, our lives for the portfolios of the richest one percent.

No, Donald Trump, we are not warriors. We are sacrifices to your god of Mamon. We are burning in the fire while your cronies dance around the golden calf.