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Why did they feel good? I was in the middle of a lengthy move in March/April. Ended up at my new destination at the height of the panic buying/supply chain dis

Why did they feel good? I was in the middle of a lengthy move in March/April. Ended up at my new destination at the height of the panic buying/supply chain disruptions with nothing in my pantry and a single roll of paper towel. Literally as unprepared as possible. Needless to say, I managed to stay alive... I completely stocked a new pantry with no problems, except flour and yeast, which was easy enough to find after a week or two of calling around. I did use paper towel as toilet paper for a whole week. Completely. Disastrous, let me tell you :) I did have masks that I use for wood working, so that was nice, but cutting up a shirt wouldn't have been the end of the world. And I did buy the very last thing of hand sanitizer at the store, so that was lucky, but in a pinch my 2 bottles of cheap tequila would've done the trick. Tbh if I had spent years prepping for a pandemic I'd be pretty disappointed with how this one went down... afaict zero prepping was necessary.

burkaman 6y ago
Because going to a grocery store was and still is a lot more dangerous than usual, and it would be nice to have a two week stash of food so you could quarantine and then go visit your family or something without worrying about infecting them. I don't have a stash, and obviously I think going out to buy food is an acceptable risk, but I definitely would have felt better in March and April if I could have avoided the grocery store for a while. > Tbh if I had spent years prepping for a pandemic I'd be pretty disappointed with how this one went down... afaict zero prepping was necessary. I mean, come on. You and I have both ridden this out with little to no disruption to our lives, but hundreds of thousands are dead, and many more are out of work, unable to afford food, close to being evicted. "I'm fine so I guess it was never a big deal" is not an appropriate attitude.
myself248 6y ago
Because it meant not contributing to the crowds. Not burdening the grocery workers. Not worrying about where to get masks, or gloves, or hand sanitizer. Having the right masks, and not having to wonder if a cut-up t-shirt would work. (Remember early on, that wasn't clear.) Because preparation meant being able to actually stay at home during the stay-at-home orders, not "stay at home except for the grocery store and the pharmacy and the gas station and the warehouse club and the pizza joint", which largely moots the point. You survived, which is great, but whatever you were doing to stock your pantry was riskier than sitting at home eating from an already-stocked pantry. It's a game of numbers and odds, and some of those same folks you were shopping alongside were sick, and did get others sick, and did contribute to the first surge in cases that swamped the hospitals. Being prepared meant being able to completely sit out every one of those dice-throws. The more people who are prepared, the better the odds for everyone, not just the prepared.

burkaman 6y ago

Because going to a grocery store was and still is a lot more dangerous than usual, and it would be nice to have a two week stash of food so you could quarantine and then go visit your family or something without worrying about infecting them. I don't have a stash, and obviously I think going out to buy food is an acceptable risk, but I definitely would have felt better in March and April if I could have avoided the grocery store for a while. > Tbh if I had spent years prepping for a pandemic I'd be pretty disappointed with how this one went down... afaict zero prepping was necessary. I mean, come on. You and I have both ridden this out with little to no disruption to our lives, but hundreds of thousands are dead, and many more are out of work, unable to afford food, close to being evicted. "I'm fine so I guess it was never a big deal" is not an appropriate attitude.

myself248 6y ago

Because it meant not contributing to the crowds. Not burdening the grocery workers. Not worrying about where to get masks, or gloves, or hand sanitizer. Having the right masks, and not having to wonder if a cut-up t-shirt would work. (Remember early on, that wasn't clear.) Because preparation meant being able to actually stay at home during the stay-at-home orders, not "stay at home except for the grocery store and the pharmacy and the gas station and the warehouse club and the pizza joint", which largely moots the point. You survived, which is great, but whatever you were doing to stock your pantry was riskier than sitting at home eating from an already-stocked pantry. It's a game of numbers and odds, and some of those same folks you were shopping alongside were sick, and did get others sick, and did contribute to the first surge in cases that swamped the hospitals. Being prepared meant being able to completely sit out every one of those dice-throws. The more people who are prepared, the better the odds for everyone, not just the prepared.