Today is officially Lockdown Day in our house. I want to be transparent about our transition here, to help people understand that in many places (not the hotspots) this is a numbers/odds game with a timetable, & not a binary on/off thing. Every day that passes your danger...
...from being in a public place goes up, & it also goes up the denser the crowd. Right now, north of Austin (in Georgetown, TX) my best guess/gamble is that it was ok for me to PPE up & make a last run to Walmart. It helped that Walmart wasn't crowded so i could maintain distance
I was not the only person in Walmart with some kind of PPE, tho I was the only one with gloves. My experience with the gloves is they're probably better than the mask b/c I /really/ do not touch my face with them on. I'm hyper-aware of my hands with them. It's great.
I loaded up for Doomsday & only got like two looks. The shelves were very picked over and many were emptied out entirely of staple goods, especially canned. I was prepared to be like "who has two blue thumbs & is based!" but there was no judgement. Just ppl trying to get ready.
I share this because my point is this: you just have to do the best you can do, & try to err on the side of caution. Don't have this attitude: "I can't go into total lockdown, so what's the point of even trying?" Don't do that. Take every precaution you can take to help your odds
It's a numbers and an odds game, & time is not on your side. So it's ok to start with whatever measures you can start with, & ratchet down harder every day. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good-enough-to-save-you.
I'll say something else: what I've done up until now was preparing. But what I just did at Walmart felt like panic-buying to me. I had this moment where I was like, "I'm panic buying. I'm a panic buyer. I'm just grabbing all the things because they're there & I can."
I figure if I'm doing this, many many other people are. The woman who was checking me out said, "Yeah, I need to shop tonight. I only keep enough food for 1 day in my house, but I guess I should stock up." I'm thinking, "have you walked around the store? It may be empty by then."
I think the reason I kicked into panic buying mode was precisely because the shelves were so empty & it looked like doomsday in there. The sight of those stretches of empty shelves triggered some instinct & I was like "I HAVE TO GET THE LAST SIX GIANT CANS OF TOMATOES"
I imagine this is the kind of thing that feeds on itself. The more the shortage is visible, the more frenzied people get about getting theirs, & the more frenzied they get the more visible the shortage.
Yet again, early is on-time, and on-time is late.
Yet again, early is on-time, and on-time is late.
To clarify, we've made multiple Costco & grocery runs over the past four weeks, so this wasn't me doing everything last-minute. Yesterday I bought a new fridge at Lowe's & wanted to fill it. (Also, this is a moment when it's ok to stick a backup fridge in a random room.)
You can get a good-sized new refrigerator for under $500. That is still a lot of money for most people, but if that's something you can afford then know that it's an option. Stick it in the TV room or the bedroom or wherever. Dwell isn't doing a photoshoot @ ur house right now.
I turned this thread into a post: theprepared.com/blog/even-if-y…
