#2495 this again?

I just got back from the grocery store. I was too lazy to go yesterday, so I had to go after work tonight. We were out of essentials like milk, Brummell & Brown, and sriracha, among other things. One of the don’t-come-home-without-it items on the list was sliced black olives. We have tacos every week at our house, and MT like to put sliced black olives on his tacos or taco salads. (This practice has been hotly debated in the break room of my work. It’s an American thing, isn’t it?)

The olives shelves were bare. There were some green olives, but those are not acceptable for tacos. Look at the sad olive shelves:

The olives I buy are usually on the second shelf from the bottom. You can see it is bare. As I recall, there were no olives there when I shopped the previous weekend either. What’s with the run on sliced black olives? Is everyone in West Valley having tacos?

As I walked through the store, I noticed there were quite a lot of empty shelves. The dog food aisle had a lot of empty space. There were lots of bins for different fruits and veggies that were empty. The toilet paper/paper towel aisle was fairly full, as were the shelves with cleaning products. 

It made me wonder, though, as the pandemic rages on, are we in for more shortages? Here in the U.S., we are so accustomed to our grocery store shelves being stocked with at least three to five brands (or more) of every product the store carries. I wouldn’t mind if there was just one or two brands of sliced olives to choose from, as long as there were some sliced olives. I think having fewer choices is why I like Trader Joe’s. The quality of their products is very good to excellent and I think they are reasonably priced. I’m sad I didn’t look for sliced olives while I was there last week.

I heard a story on The World today (an NPR program) that talked about how people are becoming numb to the COVID-19 fatality figures and pretty much just everything associated with the virus. I know that for myself, the first few months of the pandemic, I was tracking the global, United States, and Utah cases and deaths daily. Then it became monthly. I didn’t even look at the numbers at the start of January. I guess I am guilty of the numbness to the numbers a little. Along with everything else, it’s a lot. I’m not surprised that more and more people are looking to speak to therapists or turning to substances to try to cope. 

Today is January 11. March 11, 2020 is when the worldwide pandemic was declared, so we are ten months into this situation. From what I’m seeing, the end isn’t in sight, despite the rollout of the vaccines, the mask wearing, the social distancing, and the hand washing. We still have not flattened the curve. To be honest, the flattest the curve has been here in Utah was during March and April when there was a nearly complete shutdown. I know it freaks everyone out that another shut down would spell the end for the economy, but I don’t think we can fix the economy without overcoming the virus. There is nothing easy about any of this. 

In the meantime, grab those olives while you can. I’ll be going to another grocery store tomorrow to see if I can find a couple of cans of olives to get us through our taco nights.

Stay safe friends!