Trip to the store

I drove past Target on the way to the grocery store I frequent. I was surprised at how many cars were in the lot. Then I remembered they have some groceries, too.

I was not surprised there were a lot of cars at my grocery, but I was surprised just how full the lot would be. The one thing glaringly missing inside at that time of day was people stocking the shelves. Usually the aisles are full of carts stacked with pallets of everything imaginable. Today no one was working within the aisles. Were the shelves stocked before the store opened? Probably, but it looked like no restocking had happened this morning after a busy night last night.

I only got about half of my list in the store. I expected as much, but hoped for better. I was expecting there to be no bread, and there was none. I was lucky enough to get my fall back, tortillas, which will do nicely, and in a quantity not designed to feed the entire U.S. Army. I had to go to plan B on olive oil, I got my brand but in a smaller, more expensive per volume, bottle. Thankfully there was plenty of milk available. I lucked out with canned fruit. The shelf was bare, but the kind I was looking for seemed to be mis-shelved a step or two away, and there was plenty. Figuring cat treats wouldn't be a hot item I went to the pet food aisle. There was a reasonable amount of cat food available, but I don't need any. No cat treats of any kind were to be seen. There seemed to be enough meat on the shelves for a few more hours of shoppers. I have plenty, so I left it for others.

Since I expect many people will keep going back to try to find whatever they missed today, day-after-day, picking up stray items that are in stock whether needed or not, I expect things to be just as bad for the duration. You can't tell mothers not to buy extra food for their kids. You can't convince people, that if they'd just do their usual shopping there would be more than plenty for all. We'll just have to live with it...