I have always been a minimalist in the grocery department. I buy exactly what we need for one week, we eat all of it, and then I go buy more (every Monday afternoon, to be exact). Leftovers get tossed after 48 hours on the dot if they don’t get consumed, but they usually do, because I am so organized about our food supply.
I am not a hoarder. We have a tiny pantry and limited storage elsewhere around our house, so I always try to run out of things exactly when I buy a fresh supply – whether milk, eggs, toilet paper, or paper towels.
Coronavirus, I quickly found out, does not cater to minimalists. Coronavirus justifies all the hoarders and the stashers and the apocalyptic preppers and the “let’s buy one extra, just in case” people of the world.
We were a few hours into lockdown and needed eggs, butter, and (hopefully) some fresh meat and produce. I needed to come up with a plan.
The same day our shelter-in-place took effect, a friend tagged me on an Instagram post. Mother’s Market, a healthy, vegetarian grocery store in our area was allowing the elderly and immunocompromised to shop from 6-7am before the store opened to the general public. According to the comments on the post, they were including pregnant women in this group. I told Micah I was going to leave early the next morning to try to get groceries for the family and that our nanny would arrive at 8:30 if I wasn’t back yet. At this point, Micah was still going into work each day, as banking was classified as an “essential” function.
I set my alarm for 5:45am and woke before dawn. Already dressed in workout gear, I slipped on my running shoes, grabbed a jacket, and headed out into my dark neighborhood. The lights were on at Mother’s and there were probably 10-20 cars in the parking lot. Inside, the shelves were fairly well stocked. I was able to grab some berries and some other produce, two packs of eggs, yogurt, and four single rolls of organic toilet paper, which was the limit per customer. The store was out of dry staples such as pasta and flour, and there was no meat since it’s a vegetarian market. Of course, the story is very expensive. I took my healthy, non-GMO items to the front and paid over $100 for what probably would have cost $50-60 at Ralphs. But I had eggs and that’s what mattered.
At this point, the sun was rising. I was already out and about, so I decided to swing by Sprouts a few blocks away. Here I was able to find a bit more produce, brown rice pasta, and a bag of organic flour. (It’s been over two weeks, and I haven’t been able to find flour again since that day.) The shelves were very empty, so each item I found felt like a treasure.
Since I had momentum, I decided I would try Ralph’s again, but the bigger location. A friend had messaged me the morning before saying that you had to wait in line to get in for about 45 minutes, but if you went early in the morning it was fairly well stocked, including a limited supply of toilet paper.
I had a little bit of time to kill and wanted to minimize my time waiting in line at 37 weeks pregnant, so I stopped by one of my favorite coffee shops for a latte. This was their first day open for “take out only” according to the newest county mandate. The lights were dimmed and all the chairs were up on the tables. There were only two baristas working rather than the usual four or five. It was eerie, but I grabbed a vanilla latte and was thankful for the caffeine on my morning rounds at the market. I once again felt like I was living in a novel where I had to wait in line at the store and barter for a loaf of bread.
I stopped in CVS across from the coffee shop to casually look for toilet paper and baby wipes. Eisley has been potty trained since Thanksgiving, so I had let our supply dwindle down over the past few months, but with a new baby on the way, I really wanted to re-stock. I know that technically I could survive without them and use washcloths, but especially for those first few weeks of newborn diapers, I was really hoping I could find some wipes.
CVS had no wipes. But I was able to grab a 500 sheet pack of white printer paper. This was another essential during this homeschooling, home-all-day, let’s not watch another show world we were now living in.
I made my way down the block to Ralph’s and probably had to wait about 20 minutes to get into the store. It’s hard how to access how long lines are during the pandemic since everyone in the line is supposed to stand six feet apart. You could be miles from the door and still get in rather quickly. People in the line were in good spirits and were speaking encouraging words to each other.
Ralphs was operating on limited hours (8am-8pm), because they needed to fully restock the store each night. While everyone across America was starting to lose their jobs due to the economic shut-down, every grocery store was hiring desperately, especially nighttime stockers to replenish the empty shelves each day. I compared it to moving all your furniture out of your house every evening and then moving it all back in every single morning. Grocery stores are not supposed to work that way. When I was in Ralphs, I heard a manager release all the overnight workers on the intercom. “To our overnight crew. Thank you so much. You are free to go home.” As I was leaving the store a few minutes later, I saw many of these workers unstrapping their knee pads and climbing into their cars exhausted. Grocery store work must be one of the most physically grueling jobs in America right now.
Once inside Ralphs, I was able to find a good deal of what I needed. They, too, had signs up rationing meat, dairy, and paper products, but unlike the other Ralphs on Monday, they were actually following the rules of their categories: two poultry, two beef, two pork. I grabbed two packs of chicken, two packs of ground beef, and a pack of bacon. I glanced down the baby aisle as I walked past and something caught my eye on the lowest shelf… a bulk-size package of Huggies Natural Care Wipes hiding in the shadows. It seemed too good to be true… the brand and size that I usually buy lingering on the shelf for me. I hauled the big box into my cart and praised the Lord silently.
At the paper goods aisle, there was a line. One end was blocked off with shopping carts and the other end was roped off with an attendant monitoring it. She would lift the rope and two customers were allowed to go down the aisle at a time. You were allowed to purchase one toilet paper package and one paper towel package. I decided to wait in the line and bought a fairly big package of toilet paper. I’m pretty sure it cost like $27.99 for the pack, which makes me want to cry, but now I know we will have toilet paper in the house when the baby arrives.
By the time I got home, it was 9:45 am. I had been out for almost three hours. Micah had already left for work and I texted him, feeling elated: “I got toilet paper and baby wipes and meat and eggs and so much other good stuff. If we couldn’t go shopping again for 2-3 weeks, we would be okay.”
Apparently, my minimalist shopping habits are a thing of the past.
