You’re probably wondering if this blog post is really about pants and toilet paper. And I’m going to let you know right away that it is, so if that doesn’t interest you, now would be the time to exit out, but since you’re already here, I promise it’s a short read.
Pants and toilet paper, this seems to the major decisions most people are facing every day. Now I should clarify that I wear pants every day, c’mon people you don’t really think I walking around with no pants on, are you? It’s just that this situation we are all dealing with, this “stay home, stay safe” edict has made the decision of the type of pants both so easy and so hard.
When I’m working I wear my uniform pants, but on the weekends, it’s a different story. With no place to go, I can get away with wearing sweat pants or my flannel lounge pants, ( aka, the pants I sleep in ) But this past weekend I was sent out on a task to go to the store for a few items, and yes, one of them was toilet paper.
I feel like we are regressing as a species. Millions of years ago, the men of the family were sent out to hunt and gather to provide for their families. They had to deal with the wild animals of that time and hunt them in all kinds of conditions and weather. Now, we are sent to find toilet paper and just the right size cucumbers and bell peppers.
It was at this moment that I was staring into my closet and I realized that it had been awhile since I had worn pants on the weekend. I probably could have gone to the store in my sweatpants and nobody would have noticed. It seems like the only thing people are noticing these days is if you are wearing a face mask. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that my button fly, 501 Levis fit just as good as always, the buttons were not “socially distancing” from each other.
An even greater surprise came at the store, it seemed like a bright light was shining over the paper products aisle and I swear I heard angels singing, for lo and behold….they had toilet paper. It has been about a month since I’ve seen anything in the paper products aisle, but I didn’t want to be one of those hoarding type of people, so I only bought one pack, which contained 9 rolls.
As I’ve discussed in previous writings, I’m one of those people who have no idea how much anything costs, I would be terrible if I ever made it on the TV show, “The Price is Right.” I would be the guy with the confused look on his face, frantically staring back into the crowd for any type of help and then blurt out some pathetically bad price that would cause the whole audience to groan in disbelief. I would be that one person who is stuck in the row for the whole hour, never making it up on stage, each answer worse than the previous one.
Any how, my point is that even I noticed that a 9 pack of toilet paper costs $10.50, which seemed a little pricey even during a pandemic. Now I understand the whole supply and demand issue, I mean that’s economics 101, and even though economics can be boring, supply and demand is covered on like the first day. My suspicions of high priced toilet paper were confirmed by my wife, and I decided to investigate further by doing a google search by asking the simple question…
“Whats the deal with toilet paper?”
A fun thing to do whenever you sit down at a computer is just type in…
“Whats the deal with….
and then see what comes up. On this day the first two results were not about corona virus or pandemics, but about…
area 51 and airline food.
Yes, it seems even during a global pandemic the likes of which we have never seen in our life time, the fascination with area 51 and the frustration with airline food still tops the internet search list.
For your information, toilet paper was number 3 on the list, so it wasn’t just me questioning the supply chain and pricing of toilet paper. I did read one interesting article that stated that toilet paper production is always a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week process, so it’s very difficult to increase production due to a sudden high demand. All we can hope for is that people no longer feel the need to hoard toilet paper every time they see it at the store and eventually the supply catches up to the demand.
I hope so…I have to think that 100 years from now people might be confused wondering whatever happened to our generation. At one time they hunted and killed their food, but now they hoard toilet paper and contemplate wearing pants.
Be safe and as always…peace
John's Blog 