My take on the great toilet paper run of 2020. I have twenty years in military intelligence followed by a career in business consulting (admittedly, as a lawyer) where I worked with human behaviors mainly, followed by a career as an author where I’ve published some 24 books in the post-apocalyptic genre. The bottom is twofold. It started with people who have no idea how to prep for relatively long-term isolation. And it ended with the scarcity principle.
If you were in any way, shape, or form ready for a one-month lockdown (as we are perpetually because we live in the Sub-Arctic), then you would have one-month supplies on hand of everything and then some, including fuel and water. If you live in a bigger city, this isn’t always possible. You go to the grocery store multiple times a week to get what you need because the modern supply chain makes the concept of running out of anything unfathomable. That is not today – we’ve run out because a logistics chain that has been successfully delivering toilet paper to over 325 million butts day in, day out was overwhelmed when a couple hundred million doubled their purchases for that extra couple weeks when they wouldn’t be able to go out. It’ll catch back up because the backbone of modern society is our robust and redundant supply chain.
If people had been preparing for a contingency (military intel makes one paranoid because you have no idea about the real threats out there) all along, the surge would not have overwhelmed the system because it would have been a trickle and not a flood. Give it a month for production to catch up and you’ll find big box stores with a massive glut of toilet paper. The real preppers will wait until they put that stuff on sale for half price to clear the shelf space, while too many will have no place to put extra TP because they bought it during the scarcity, worried they wouldn’t be able to buy again.
And now that is happening with food, too. But the wrong kinds of food because people have no idea about survival level rationing of meals. Others are stuck buying whatever they can get. Once again, real preppers already have stocks of canned meat and frozen meat (up here, if power is lost, just roll the freezer outside and you’re good for six months out of the year, or fire up your generator because we all have them). Those better equipped for an emergency have frozen vegetables on hand and starter seeds already growing in the garage or back room. We have three feet of snow on the ground mid-March, so when it gets past the last freeze maybe in May, those seedlings need to be well-grown and ready to go. But if you live in town, that option is taken away, which means that peace of mind is taken away. Back to the store to see what’s left.
Medical professionals are the frontline soldiers who will battle the enemy, but for the rest of us, the heroes of this adventure are those who work in warehouses, drive trucks, and stock shelves. They will be the ones, when everything is said and done, who will have kept America alive. Wendy took this picture of our house – it is what the back of beyond looks like.
My mom always made fun of my having at least a month’s supply of tp and non perishable food. (Especially the tp). But since I have lived alone except for cats for the past 25 years more or less, who was going to bring me a roll if I didn’t stock up? ( Other issues also made it prudent to keep stocked with female supplies, but surgery finally corrected that problem)
I tend to hermit and read – have really enjoyed your books and hope to visit Alaska again after all the hoopla is over. Have only scratched the surface of your beautiful state through 2 cruises. I really want to spend more time than a port of call allows.
Excellent article! Couldn’t have agreed more! A couple friends of mine have also been discussing the same scenario as you proposed as well as who would be able to survive if worst came to worst in North America. Our hypothesis was that those of us who buy most household goods on a monthly or longer basis can comfortably continue as normal while so many others panic. Also, some of us from an older generation know how to (and still) garden then preserve the summer’s bounty for winter’s lean months. It is an ingrained way of thinking and living rather than those you don’t plan surviving beyond more than a week or less.
Thank you for your books! Love the Kutherian based stories answer looking forward to future editions!
Thanks for the input. Maybe now my kids will listen when I tell them to get ready. Maybe. Thanks for the great stories. I like all of them, but my particular favorites are the Alaska stories, even though there was some negatory resident razzing.