Shortages

 I have lived though shortages before this current pandemic.  In the 1980s my little family with a one year old moved to Okinawa, Japan courtesy of Uncle Sam.  It was my first experience with military dependent life. It was the longest and farthest I had lived from home.  Our little military community felt in many ways like back home.  The BXs and PXs and Commissaries supplied my needs.

Okinawa had hurricanes that they called cyclones.  They would shut the island down for days and it was important to stock up prior to hurricanes.  At least it seemed like it was.  The stores would be packed with shoppers preparing for the big event.  Sometimes the predictions were wrong and it missed and sometimes the storm was right on over head.  In the 2 and a half years I lived out there I went through a few of those storms.

But, and even bigger thing were the shortages.  I don't completely recall the cause, I think it may have been some sort of dock workers struck on the west coast, but during my time in Okinawa there was a period of shortages.  Toilet paper was one of the first things to disappear from the store shelves.  Then there was dishwasher soap.  I think disposable diapers may have been one of the things.  I can't remember the others.  But, I do remember this, some of the shortages were created by rumors that something was going to be in short supply.  Wives would say to other wives, husbands would report rumors, and if I was in the store I would buy an extra of whatever it was.

The problems with buying an extra, and I don't even mean hoarding, just an extra package of something, is that the normal supplies get exhausted quicker.  It takes a long time to catch up from a shortage.  Everybody is super aware that they might run out, so they keep extra on hand.  I wasn't really caught short of toilet paper in this pandemic because I always keep extra packages of that around.  Since my Okinawa days, I don't let myself run out of things I need, I keep some on hand.

All that said, I was in the grocery store the other day and saw 2- 24 packages of toilet paper.  I confess that I don't think that I will need any until August. But, I bought one of those packs just in case.