(This post is part of a series of daily letters from me to my future children reporting from the emerging paradigm.)
Dear Kids:
When the virus first broke out, we had no idea how it would affect our ability to get food and supplies. Mom went really hard in the garden this year so we were certain we would get fresh produce. For a second I thought about doing some canning.
Instead we just stocked up as was advised, for up to 30 days. I go into town once a week to replenish our water stash–the well water here is not delicious–and get supplemental groceries from the food co-op.
So far, at the end of July, four months into quarantine, I have only experienced two big disruptions in supply chain that have affected my life.
I ran out of PG Tips, which if you as my children don’t know that in my opinion this is the greatest commercially available black tea made for daily use then I have failed to prepare you for a great life. PG Tips. Remember this.
I’m trying hard to divest from Amazon, and it used to be I could get it at a little discount on PG Tips from them. Now it’s the same price or more than the grocery store (possibly due to better supply chain on the grocery end, maybe they got a better distributer, who knows).
Though I don’t have much money right now, I am incredibly intentional with how I spend it. So I spend at the Food Co-op which has the greatest impact on my local economy, rather than making Jeff Bezos more rich.
The Co-op (and the local Safeway, to be fair) throughout the pandemic, has had a few empty shelves due to distributor errors. They’ve had times where what they ordered didn’t come in at all and was just ??? when they would be getting things in. Nothing major, nothing irreplaceable. I just drank the rest of my stash of Irish Breakfast Tea from Trader Joe’s.
Finally they got some PG Tips in, in the 40 bag box not the 80 bag box I prefer. Not a huge disruption for an imported tea product. And like everything in this pandemic, it just took more patience on my part to weather the disruption.
The second big supply chain issue I had was Biscuit Reynolds’ food. He has lots of special needs, including a special food from Royal Canin that has two special formulas in it. I like to buy bulk to save over time, but the big bags weren’t available as he was running out of food.
I bought a bag from the online pharmacy our vet up here uses. And then as his food dwindled I heard nothing about shipping. I called, apparently Royal Canin was very disrupted by the pandemic and his food might not be available for a long time.
Panicked, looking at less than a week left of his food in my supply, I called the vet. I was able to get half his formula in a small bag from them (the Urinary SO, to prevent bladder crystals, arguably the most important half) and just had to suck up that I was spending way more than I budgeted for cat food and getting way less. July has been a weird month with more month than money.
But luckily he stayed fed and preventing bladder crystals which is a huge deal. And now his real food finally arrived and I’m just blending the two bags together as best as I can. He seems fine.
Someone predicted in the Fall we would really see supply chain effects from the coronavirus lockdown and I’m genuinely curious if we will. I’m staying adaptable.
xoxo,
Mom
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