Empty Shelves

 

Pic sourced from keyt.com

Yesterday I had a disastrous online shopping experience. I placed an order at around 4pm through one of my favourite shopping portals, paid for my purchase and waited. And continued to wait.. and wait..

The goods did not come. And finally after filing a complaint at 6pm, I got two contradictory messages an hour later: the text message said the order was cancelled while the email message said my order was on its way. It was then that I gave up.

So today I decided to step out of the house and visit a local grocer the earliest possible this morning. It was a good decision because there was hardly anyone out and about.

The first shop I visited was one I often ordered from for vegetables and fresh produce - but lately, it did not have much to offer online. I had the shock of my life when I entered for what I encountered were rows and rows of empty shelves. Thankfully there was something at the fresh produce corner that I could purchase.

So this got me thinking, was the situation a result of panic buying? Or is it just impossible for the shop owner to get stock during this lockdown - hence the empty shelves? Obviously as I paid at the till, there was no lack of early morning customer wandering in and trying their luck (who faithfully observed the SOP).

Oh, how I long for those pre-pandemic days when things were in abundance. This post-apocalypse feeling is giving me the heebie jeebies.