How COVID-19 is affecting society

[Jolene Benoir]

First people hoarded toilet paper, then hand sanitizer, masks, meat, lysol, baking supplies... the things people are hoarding seem to move in waves.

The latest hoarding fad in Columbia seems to be dildos.

It's weird, but... for once, it's a hoarding fad that I can't complain about. Nobody is seriously suffering because they lack dildos. If somebody has an extreme dildo fetish, they probably started collecting them before the crisis hit, so I'm not worried about a shortage. Also, this might be a positive way to release tension after you've been quarantined with your spouse and kids 24/7 for a month.

I do have to wonder if there are Columbian dildo hoarders with rooms full of dildos, trying to corner the adult entertainment market, LOL

Sex toy sales take off amid Colombia's coronavirus quarantine

Gerson Monje holds up his cellphone to proudly show off his online sex shop. A red banner reading "sold out!" is plastered across half of the products.

www.reuters.com

I cannot find hamburger to save my life unless I want to pay $6/lb. It seems chicken and beef are the main things meats people are hoarding, lol @ how that combines with your post.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I cannot find hamburger to save my life unless I want to pay $6/lb. It seems chicken and beef are the main things meats people are hoarding, lol @ how that combines with your post.

I don't know to what extent empty shelves indicate hoarding and to what extent they reflect the fact that so many people are now having to eat at home all the time rather than at work, school, restaurants and bars, so their buying habits are going to change, particularly if they're trying to minimise the number of visits they have to make to the supermarket.

I can also well understand why, in uncertain times like these, people want to keep their freezers fully stocked.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

I don't know to what extent empty shelves indicate hoarding and to what extent they reflect the fact that so many people are now having to eat at home all rather than at work, school, restaurants and bars, so their buying habits are going to change, particularly if they're trying to minimise the number of visits they have to make to the supermarket.

I can also well understand why, in uncertain times like these, people want to keep their freezers fully stocked.

Good point. I've read that pork products, despite the claim of the Smithfiled CEO, that had to have their South Dakote plant shut down *temporarily* at least due to 300+ of their employees having been tested as positive that indeed they have surpluses due to the fact that restaurants aren't ordering right now.

From my own personal observation, pork is plentiful, beef and chicken not so much. It's like a wasteland in the meat dept with it being completely empty of beef and chicken with plenty of pork available in the middle. Let's hear it for pork recipes! I can make do with whatever I can get.

 

[Free]

 

[Jolene Benoir]

I didn't mention it, but I got spit upon by a chick in the grocery store on Saturday. Yes, full-throated spit. Normally, at this store, if they are out of something you go to the service desk to get a raincheck. Apparently that does not apply right now, but I did not know that.

So, I got into line after having gone through the regular line. I chatted about 5-10 minutes with the guy in front of me. When it came time for me to approach, some woman who was nowhere in sight before this came up and said I had cut in line. I was like, "What, where were you?" Seriously. I was there for 5 to 10 minutes and me and the guy in front of me were the only two people there.

I let her go, but she still wanted to keep it going. I said, "I'm sorry, If I had known you were waiting, of course I would have let you go." She then spit on me. All over my jacket, sweatshirt that I was wearing and probably face too as we know that airborne particles go all over.

Lesson learned. Do not go out. People aren't behaving rationally.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

It has been a rough couple of days between having to duck for bullets and getting spit upon. I'm not feeling particularly charitable toward humanity. But, I try to hold close to my values. I won't become part of the "ugly".

 

[Cindy Claveau]

I didn't mention it, but I got spit upon by a chick in the grocery store on Saturday. Yes, full-throated spit. Normally, at this store, if they are out of something you go to the service desk to get a raincheck. Apparently that does not apply right now, but I did not know that.

Given how extremely stressed and fearful people are right now, I have to question this woman's common sense. People get SHOT for pulling shit like that! If nothing else, people have also been arrested for spitting. I think I might have taken her photo and called the cops.

Two women arrested for spitting on people amid COVID-19 outbreak

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Given how extremely stressed and fearful people are right now, I have to question this woman's common sense. People get SHOT for pulling shit like that! If nothing else, people have also been arrested for spitting. I think I might have taken her photo and called the cops.

Two women arrested for spitting on people amid COVID-19 outbreak

In retrospect, I thought of that, but of course, in the thick of it, I did not. I don't agree with going after everyone who has a cough, but this? Yeah, she, with deliberation, chose to do that. I dunno. I did consider bodily harm briefly, but that isn't me, so I did not. I do know that spitting upon people, normally, can result in a charge because AIDS, and they are going after people for far less right now, but none of that crossed my mind at the time.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

Given my current level of frustration with the festering conflagration of contagious stupidity that's destroying the U.S. ... I really doubt I could have refrained from grabbing a beverage or soup from my shopping basket and showering her with it.

Either that or yelling at the cashier to call security to detain her while I call the police to press charges for assault.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

On the other hand, its possible the store itself might press charges - since spitting produces more aerosol [I think?] and thus endangers others in the store as well.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Fuck them right up the .... with a screwdriver. Some of them chose to influence their churchgoers to attend on Easter Sunday, no doubt due to the fact that it is largely a nice fundraising event for them. They didn't and don't care about the health of their parishioners.

I do realize that in times of calamity people feel a need to attend church, in some attempt to try to make sense of it all, to feel comfort and so on.. These vultures took advantage of that and endangered their lives, and more often than not in the name of money.

They can fuck right off to the deepest levels of hell. I'm reminded often and frequently of "Money is the root of all evil". Obviously not, there are all sorts of roots of the evil we do to one another, but money holds my highest contempt, alongside those who worship it.

Asking their parishioners to give THEM the stimulus money is beyond the pale. To most of us, that $1200, while welcomed is not going to stave off financial problems. Every single one of us needs that money to provide for our families, and in many cases some are not eligible or it will only negligbly cover expenses. To ask for that is absolutely disgusting, especially by those that have more than they need already. The very last place it needs to go is to greedy people.

Yeah, I can work from home. My spouse can not but at the moment we are ok. Assuming the money finally gets to us my plan is to use all, or at least most, of it on tips.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

There is that, too. Normally, they want nothing to do with gub'mint, except when THEIR communities are hit. Contempt is high for these modern-day shysters who only have their hand out when THEY need it, despite their constant refusal to contribute, but asking their, probably majority poor, to give THEM their stimulus checks is beyond the pale.

Oh it gets even better.

ALLEGEDLY, this church sent a bus across town (Baton Rouge) on Friday to a public elementary school where 5-day meal kits were being distributed for free to local neighborhood families. The meal kits contained 5 breakfasts and 5 lunches, as well as a half-gallon of milk, and were intended for children although the people working this particular location weren't turning people away who claimed to be parents of children who were left at home. The church bus loaded up on these meal kits, presumably to distribute to the church's own parishioners, causing the location to run out of kits early and many of the families who lined up to have to leave empty-handed.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Oh it gets even better.

ALLEGEDLY, this church sent a bus across town (Baton Rouge) on Friday to a public elementary school where 5-day meal kits were being distributed for free to local neighborhood families. The meal kits contained 5 breakfasts and 5 lunches, as well as a half-gallon of milk, and were intended for children although the people working this particular location weren't turning people away who claimed to be parents of children who were left at home. The church bus loaded up on these meal kits, presumably to distribute to the church's own parishioners, causing the location to run out of kits early and many of the families who lined up to have to leave empty-handed.

Presuming God is real, I hope when the end times come that these people get exactly what they deserve. Because they are not doing the work their god told them to do... but then I did read Narnia books as much as LoTR so i might have different ideas on these things than some folks.

 

[Kara Spengler]

I don't know to what extent empty shelves indicate hoarding and to what extent they reflect the fact that so many people are now having to eat at home all the time rather than at work, school, restaurants and bars, so their buying habits are going to change, particularly if they're trying to minimise the number of visits they have to make to the supermarket.

I can also well understand why, in uncertain times like these, people want to keep their freezers fully stocked.

There have been reports that there are 2 supply chains, to stores and to businesses. Both have slightly different products and the relationships one has do not exist for the other. It is why you see farms destroying food but bare shelves.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Presuming God is real, I hope when the end times come that these people get exactly what they deserve. Because they are not doing the work their god told them to do... but then I did read Narnia books as much as LoTR so i might have different ideas on these things than some folks.

It really is sad. And you know, personal differences with this or that religion or religion in general and political douchiness aside, most small community churches don't do things like this. Ordinarily, instead of asking people to donate their pandemic relief aid to the church to give to a few missionaries, normal churches tend to do things like ask their own parishioners for food donations and then give that food to other parishioners who need it. Or if they have larger congregations and get a lot of donations they then donate that food in turn to food banks, or heck even hold their own community-distribution events. I mean that kind of stuff happens all the time during more local disasters.

This church seems to be one of those mega-churches, or trying-to-be mega-churches, that always buses like hundreds of people in from around the region to its services and you know maybe I'm being unfair but I've never met a single one of these places that didn't weird me out. Over time I've come into contact with two of these places, one in Ohio and (a huge) one in Texas and while the interactions were limited both times I got serious culty vibes.

 

[Sredni Eel]

 

[Kara Spengler]

Given how extremely stressed and fearful people are right now, I have to question this woman's common sense. People get SHOT for pulling shit like that! If nothing else, people have also been arrested for spitting. I think I might have taken her photo and called the cops.

Two women arrested for spitting on people amid COVID-19 outbreak

Yes, even in the before times that probably would have been simple assault. Now in some jurisdictions it is MUCH more serious.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Oh it gets even better.

ALLEGEDLY, this church sent a bus across town (Baton Rouge) on Friday to a public elementary school where 5-day meal kits were being distributed for free to local neighborhood families. The meal kits contained 5 breakfasts and 5 lunches, as well as a half-gallon of milk, and were intended for children although the people working this particular location weren't turning people away who claimed to be parents of children who were left at home. The church bus loaded up on these meal kits, presumably to distribute to the church's own parishioners, causing the location to run out of kits early and many of the families who lined up to have to leave empty-handed.

You had a typo in the second sentence. It should start "this alleged church".

 

[Innula Zenovka]

There have been reports that there are 2 supply chains, to stores and to businesses. Both have slightly different products and the relationships one has do not exist for the other. It is why you see farms destroying food but bare shelves.

Well, yes.

Certainly restaurant chains are going to have their own supply chains -- McDonalds and Col Sanders don't buy their burgers and chicken pieces from the local supermarket, after all -- and, at least in the UK, so too do decent restaurants and bistros use different suppliers from the ones supermarkets do.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

We have had a number of restaurants in Columbus selling ingredients as a way to bridge the supply chains.