I drove past the Co-op a couple of days ago and saw a man leaving with armfuls of toilet roll. Nothing else. Just stuff to wipe his bottom with.
And in Tesco first thing this morning… not a loo roll in sight.
The coronavirus has clearly got people cacking themselves.
But panic-buying Andrex?
There’s clearly something going on in the human psyche here. A herd mentality.
Perhaps panic buying helps us feel in control of the situation.
And when some start to panic buy, it prompts others to do the same. There’s a snowball effect.
Social media doesn’t help. It just adds to the anxiety.
When you notice people running for the lifeboats, you’re going to do the same, regardless of whether the ship is sinking or not.
It’s rational to prepare for something bad that looks likely to occur. By all means buy a little bit extra to cover you for a short period of isolation.
But isn’t it time we got things in perspective?
It’s not nuclear war.
And we’re buying trolley loads of pasta too. Pasta is believed to be somewhat constipating.
So are the panic-buyers of pasta and toilet roll the same people?
Or are we looking at two completely different strategies for surviving the apocalypse?
