REGAINING CONTROL

Toilet Roll Frenzy, COSTCO

As I was navigating a local grocery store aisle this afternoon during what I thought was a slow period, I noticed more people than usual were shopping and they were stocking up on basics including a disproportionate amount of toilet paper.  I mentioned to the young cashier that I could understand folks buying basic food items and sanitizers in light of the coronavirus pandemic, but not the excessive amount of toilet paper, given that the need wasn't related to the flu symptoms.  She just shook her head and said she didn’t get it either but that it had been this way since the beginning of the week.

Driving home I thought about the rapid events that have unraveled over the past few weeks as this country watched the inevitable Trojan Airplanes and Cruise Ships disembarking infected passengers from around the world, knowing that there could be no escaping such a virus at the height of our flu season.  We are now embedded in a world economy and no longer isolated.  And when people are confronted with outside circumstances they can’t control, they turn to the one thing that remains—their response.  Psychological studies have shown over the years that reactions like the toilet paper frenzy is a subconscious behavioral attempt to gain a sense of control over this pandemic uncertainty.  It’s a sort of survivalist psychology.

And once the frenzy begins and gains momentum, everyone else is driven by the fear of a shortage which manifests into a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Soon social media kicks in to fan the flames of hoarding from images of long shopping cart lines and empty shelves surrounded by crazed shoppers wrestling bags of toilet paper from each other!  Then there is the hapless woman in Australia that attempted to hurriedly order a bag of 48 rolls and incorrectly hit the “Buy Now” icon for 48 bags instead, translating to a sixteen-year supply for her family and a bill for $3,264.  The good news is that due to the frenzy, she was able to sell the excess at a nifty profit to help finance her daughter’s education.

Just within the past week two phrases in the news have bubbled to the top of our lexicon—social distancing and self-quarantine.  But social distancing hasn’t gone too well in the big box toilet paper aisles and the threat of self-quarantines and locked down communities has fueled the flames of hoarding shoppers.  All of this frenzy in spite of the fact that the supply chain was working fine.  Gallows humor, grim or satirical humor in a desperate or worrying situation, has also surfaced such as the emergence of a quarantini drink that has replaced the martini, only you drink it alone.

As one muse opined, “Rumors, fears, and conspiracy theories have been spreading faster than the virus.  People will do what they do, especially when it comes to doo-doo”.