What I Saw at the Supermarket Monday Night
It was about 8:30 Monday night and I decided to run into a supermarket in Atlantic County just to see what things were like.
Truth be told, I really didn't need anything, having stocked-up early last week (for the record, I did not buy anything that would get me on the show "Hoarders" -- I was responsible in my grocery shopping), but since all you see on TV and Facebook are empty shelves and mile-long lines, I wanted to see what things were like locally.
Some shelves were empty, however, if you needed food you could get it.
My first trip was to the pasta aisle and while shelves were empty, you could still find some things. Same for pasta sauce.
As for meat and chicken, none to be found -- but, this was 8:30 at night. And there was lots of seafood -- that surprised me.
And, of course, no toilet paper or paper towels, but you could still find napkins.
With that said, if you needed to get food you certainly could. There were plenty of cans of tuna, canned and frozen vegetables, frozen pizza, deli meats, milk, eggs, yogurt, etc. -- it's not like there was no food at all. You might not be able to find the brand you want or the exact type, but there is food to be had.
Of course, there are things people won't buy even during a global pandemic -- like canned artichokes -- which is a really interesting study in humanity.
For comparison purposes, I usually shop at the same store at roughly the same time every week, so I know what's what. The store was more crowded than normal, but it wasn't insane. And there were people there that clearly had never been inside that store before. And there were people asking if other stores had stuff like bottled water. But all in all, it was not chaotic.
And a quick shout-out to all of the grocery store employees in our region. Yous guys are certainly feeling the brunt of what's been going on and thank you for what you do!