The Disturbing
State of Stupid
Once upon a time, there was a community in New England
that was hit with a really nasty snowstorm.
The storm was so bad that it closed all the roads. Nothing could go in or out of the town for
days. It wasn’t long before the local grocery
store – and, in the day, there was just one – ran out of things that people
needed. Specifically, bread and milk. Eventually the roads would be re-opened and
the delivery trucks would soon arrive to restock the store. But, from that point on, every time there was
word of a snowstorm, the people in that community would run to the store and hoard
all the bread and milk they could get for fear that they would once again run
out.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the origin of the whole
bread-and-milk panic buying that we experience every time there is a threat of
snow. Word of this strange compulsion
would spread across to other towns, other cities, and eventually other states
in America. People began to equate the
threat of a snowstorm with a shortage of bread and milk.
Yes, my fellow Southerners, your insane and inane compulsion
to hoard bread and milk at the rumors of snow came from New England. You’re welcome.
People are stupid.
We do stupid things.
A rational person would think about what they would
need to survive if they were without electricity or heat. They wouldn’t hoard bread and milk. Those spoil too quickly, especially if there
is no electricity for refrigeration.
They would get rice and bottled water.
They would get jerky and ready-made food that didn’t need heating or
refrigeration. They would buy firewood and/or
propane. They would buy a generator and
spare batteries and battery packs for their devices. They would get a crank-powered storm radio
and spotlight. They would get old fashioned
board games and a deck of playing cards for entertainment.
A rational person would also get these things long before
there is even a threat of disaster, because most of it could be stored away for
long periods of time until they would be needed. They wouldn’t have to run to the store at the
first hint of a threat.
But America is not a nation of rational people.
We are a nation of stupid people.
We will put ourselves into debt and wait long lines to
buy the latest smartphone from Apple or Samsung. We will act like a herd of elephants on Black
Friday and stampede through the stores to buy a new game system or HDTV “on
sale”. We respond to a perceived shortage
with a compulsion to buy as much as we can afford to beg, borrow, or steal.
And so, in March of 2020, on the eve before Friday the
13th, America once again showed its stupidity and began compulsive hoarding
of canned goods, bread, bleach, hand sanitizers, soap, paper towels, meat, poultry,
pork, and, especially, toilet paper.
They hit all the stores like gangsters.
Big or small, surplus or second-hand, they all were raided and pilfered.
The reasons behind it were confusing. There was the continued threat of the Coronavirus,
along with the
glaring ineptitude of a certain orange-skinned narcissistic con-man in the
White house and his inability to properly deal with said threat. There are rumors of a future lockdown of the
United States by said orange-skinned narcissistic con-man that were being
spread by telephone and text messages.
There are news of shutdowns and cancellations and postponements of
everything from major
league sporting events to conventions, to parades, to
Disney resorts, to
movie releases, and even TV
productions of shows like “The Flash” and “Supergirl” and (ironically) “The Walking Dead”.
But no matter the reason, the reality is this... on
the eve of Friday the 13th, America’s stupid people became the barbarian
horde and they hit all the stores to take as much bread, milk, eggs, canned
goods, frozen vegetables, meat, poultry, soap, and toilet paper as they
could. They waited in long lines at the
cash registers with shopping carts full of their pilfered goods and spent whatever
money they had to in order to be “stocked”.
The end result for the rest of us were store shelves
stripped bare and haggard store clerks unable to even apologize for the
shortage, only to wonder if the barbarian horde would return when the shelves are
restocked.
You want to know why we’re hoarding toilet paper? It’s because of China!
When the virus first spread, people in China began
hoarding masks, because that is usually the first thing people are told to when
faced with a pandemic. They are told to
get masks. Problem being, there aren’t
enough masks for everyone to hoard, and 3M couldn’t make more of them fast
enough. So the Chinese people began using
toilet paper as masks. Even organized
criminals were
stealing toilet paper like it was gold.
So the origin of the pandemic and the creators of
toilet paper have also created the hoarding frenzy surrounding it. As the Chinese would say, Bié kèqì.
Let’s get brutally honest here... America showed its ugly
stupid side this past week. It’s one
thing to be cautious, especially in the face of a global pandemic. It’s another thing entirely to succumb to our
stupid compulsions and react out of fear.
Here’s a good question for you hoarders... are you
planning on eating all of that food that you just bought? All of those steaks and ground beef and
chicken and pork? All of that bread and
milk and eggs? Sure, you can hold on to
those canned goods and toilet paper for a long time, but the rest of the stuff
has an expiration date. You can freeze
what you can, but it can’t stay frozen forever.
What then? How much of that will
you have to throw away?
And... hoarding all the soap and hand sanitizers? You know, the thing about needing to wash
your hands is that other people have to do it as well for the whole thing to
work. How can they do that if you have
all the soap and sanitizers and towels?
You’re actually contributing to the pandemic because of your
stupidity! Aren’t you proud of
yourselves? You should be!
If you really think about it, this kind of hoarding is
nothing more than transactional looting.
The kind of looting you see during a riot or after a natural disaster. The only thing limiting it is money and the
inability of the store manager to place limits beforehand. But that
is already changing, and it will affect the rest of us. Say goodbye to the late-night and overnight
shopping. Say goodbye to getting whatever
you want quickly. Say hello to rationing. And if you think this is bad, you should ask
your grandparents what your great-grandparents had to go through a century ago
when faced with real shortages.
Albert
Einstein once observed: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and
I'm not sure about the former.”
It may be infinite, but it is also by choice. We choose to be stupid. We can also choose to
not be stupid. It would be better if a
whole lot of us choose the latter.
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