Toilet Paper Hoard

First, it was the cleaning products like bleach, hand sanitizer, and Clorox wipes. Then, the rice started mysteriously disappearing. Now what has it come to? Toilet paper. The toilet paper is gone.

Panic buying seems to be a thing here. My first year in Hong Kong, right after the big Fukushima disaster, it was salt. Something about it helping ward off the negative effects of radiation. I didn't manage to get any (I'm always a few days behind on these things) but was looking forward to glowing in the dark or perhaps growing a third arm. One of those could really come in handy.

This time, as usual, I was late again on the panic buying (but just one day, so I'm getting faster), but I had happened to buy more toilet paper, paper towels, and rice the week before it all went down. Good timing. The Mothership also tried to get in on the panic buying action, asking me to buy five or six bags in my neighborhood, but by then it was too late.

Now when I traverse the back of my local Wellcome where the toilet paper and rice used to sit, I'm greeted with shelf upon shelf of laundry detergent and spicy beef flavor cup noodles. (Side note: I appreciate the honesty they show by labeling them "beef flavor." It wouldn't do to make me erroneously believe that I was consuming real beef along with the cardboard noodles). I guess the Wellcome staff had to fill the shelves with something so decided to pick the two things that had the least chance of expiring.

Oh, I also found a brick. Not sure why there is a random gray brick casually lying between the brown and white sugar packs. Maybe one of the workers got a little too carried away when panic shelving and just grabbed the nearest thing possible.

I can imagine his boss yelling, "Quick! Just grab anything! The shelves cannot be empty!This is a Code Red!" The worker paused when he came to the brick but thought to himself, "Well, the boss did say anything..." Either that or he's making a comment about the quality of their sugar.

I frequent Wellcome quite a lot now that my coworker Boris and I have somehow gotten the job of buying office supplies when we run out at work. I think it's just because we are the ones who care the most when there is no soap.

Anyway, the last time we did a supermarket run, Boris was complaining when I wanted to buy six bags of toilet paper. But I countered that we were already buying a lot of other stuff and carrying it back; why not fill our arms as full as humanly possible? We were already there, after all, and we'd use them up eventually. I thankfully won that argument, but he still laughed at my "hoarder ways."

Now that fights are breaking out over toilet paper and armed robbers mugged a deliveryman for toilet paper, who is laughing now? We still have three bags left in the office pantry.

And no, I won't tell you our address. Find your own truck to rob.