The "Twilight Zone," Revisited...

Star Date:  2235.1

So I just got back from a trip to Sam's Club, my local Big Box discount supermarket.

I'd received an email from Sam (how nice of him to write!) informing me that "old folks" like me could shop between 7 and 9:00 a.m. without having to rub shoulders with those younger commoners.  I jumped at the chance, thinking I could sort of "ease in" and "ease out" without causing a single ripple in the time warp continuum.  

Ease in?  Ummmm, nope.  Ease out?  Not nearly.

As I arrived the line of prospective elderly shoppers was around the block.  I thought hard about just driving right on past them, offering up a little wave as I passed, but given that my curiosity exceeded my fear of dying, I parked and grabbed a cart.  

The vacant looks on the other shoppers' faces was surreal.  They all looked like they'd just lost the family dog.  Shock, they were in (with apologies to Yoda)!  This looked for all the world like an episode from The "Twilight Zone."  And yet, they, and I, somehow managed to withstand the numerous bottlenecks placed in our way and were finally ushered into the store.  By a guy with a bullhorn.

(I've often thought that guys with bullhorns were attempting to hide their, ummm, shorter stature...if you know what I mean...)  

The store was nearly empty.  It seemed that they were only allowing in about 10 shoppers at a time, and only as a different 10 were leaving.  So I had about 100,000 sq. ft. open and available to me for the first time ever.  

So I of course made my way to the toilet paper aisle. 

Wonder of wonders, I was in luck!  There was still some left, but only in those packages the size of Vermont.  I mean, really, people!  This is ridiculous!  There was like 192 rolls in this thing!  I could barely lift this yuuuuge package of t.p., and after putting it in my cart, I could scarcely see over it.  But I just had to buy it.  Why?  Because everybody else was buying it, that's why.  Annnnd, I think it just might become the medium of exchange if and when our country goes into rampant, skyrocketing inflation where money once again has no value.

(Psssst!  "Hey you," as the guy opens his trench coat furtively.  "Wanna' buy some toilet paper?")

What caused all of this?  How did we go from near full employment, a roaring economy, people traveling everywhere, stock market at an all-time high, 401(k)'s fat with new wealth, to "shelter in place?"  To buying tons of toilet paper and bottled water?  To planes and trains and stores and businesses  Closed. Down. Tight? 

Kind of makes one wonder, don't it?  And when something like this just happens, out of the blue, you'll forgive me if I sense a conspiracy.  I sense a carefully orchestrated effort to take down our economy so that Trump can be swept out of office come November.  Maybe a conspiracy by those dratted, inscrutable Chinese.  

Whether that effort by the Chinese was a conspiracy against America or not, I'm not sure.  But what I am sure of is that this whole thing stinks.  And I hope the Trump Administration looks high and low to find the answer. 

But in the meantime people just like me are now faced with the challenge of venturing out in a "search and destroy" mission to acquire the necessary eggs and milk and cheese and bread and butter so they can keep body and soul together in this time of National Crisis.  Yeah, long sentence, I know.  But I specialize in them.  Learn to cope with it...

And now, the Public Health Officer of Riverside County, CA (I didn't know we had one of those!) just decided to make it a crime to leave ones' house without first donning a mask.  Yep, a $1,000 fine and six months in the Gray Bar Hotel for failing to wear...a mask.  Are you reading this?  How on Earth can some functionary just unilaterally decide to obviate the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of these here United States by the issuance of a Executive Order, released timidly at 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday Evening?  How, indeed?  

There's a great big chunk of me that wants to flaunt this bogus edict and go out trolling for a summons.  But there's a slightly bigger chunk that just wants to quietly acquiesce...

(BTW, having no mask to wear, I discovered that a quart freezer bag can be converted into a face mask with some strips of ACE bandage and a little ingenuity...)

So Sam's gave up some t.p. and very little else that morning.  There was little else to give.  Even at 100,000 sq. ft., if it's been ravaged by hordes of scared citizens trying to buy everything not nailed down that they might need for...ever, my shopping experience that morning proved less than desirable.  Especially since I had to find a way to get that enormous package of toilet paper into my car...and then out of my car...and then in to my house.  Where it will sit, presumably, for months, just looking forlornly at me, as I pass it by, wondering why I bought enough of it for an Army platoon.

Oh well, herd buying affects even us old coots...