Grocery Shopping During a Pandemic

Hi friends,

I hope you're all safe, and that your families are safe.

What is it like where you live?  Is it hard to get the groceries?

Here in Northern Ontario Canada, everything except grocery stores and pharmacies is closed.  Banks are open but only online or by phone.  Canadian Tire is also only open online or by phone.

I have severe chronic asthma and my parents are elderly. I had a heck of a time getting them to agree to stop going to stores but I think I finally go through to them (maybe).

It's hard to shop here, because of social distancing. I understand the need, and accept it.  I think it's smart, but it's hard because they can only let a so many people in the store at a time. There are lines drawn on the floor to help people keep their distance (6 feet apart).  Some stores have put up Plexiglas shields.  Staff are wearing gloves. Some staff are wearing masks. Shoppers are wearing just about anything, from garbage bags to snorkeling gear. 

There are long line ups outside all of the stores. Some stores have online ordering and curbside pickup or delivery, but most of those are fully booked for the next month. 

I finally found a store that only had a 3 day wait for a time slot for curbside pickup. It's called Cash and Carry and I'd never shopped there before. It's a warehouse that normally sells to restaurants and convenience stores.

So I ordered online...everything from sugar and flour and yeast to apples and oranges and toilet paper and soap and lots of other things.

Today my order was finally ready and a lot of it was unavailable. My oranges, peas, toilet paper, paper towels, popcorn, hand soap, flour, baking soda, yeast, and cheese were unavailable.  But the rest of the order was ready to go.

I'd ordered a 50 Ib bag of potatoes and wasn't sure how big that would be so I asked my Dad to drive his truck rather than my small car.  He's 80 so I made him wait in the truck while I ran in to show my order number and pick up my order. A staff member met me (from 6 feet away) and asked if anything was missing from my order and I told him flour.  He told me some new flour had just come in and said he'd get it for me if I still wanted it.  I said OK.  I waited and he came back and put the HUGE bag of flour on an equally HUGE, and I mean huge, industrial sized shopping cart. Nothing like the carts in normal grocery stores.  I asked why he put it there and asked where my cart was, and he said that was my cart.

I just about died.

Now it's totally my fault, which I learned as I wheeled the gigantic cart out to the truck and almost gave my Dad a heart attack from the shock.

I had ordered the 50 Ib bag of potatoes first, when I did the online ordering. After that, I just assumed everything was in Ibs.  It wasn't; every single other thing I ordered was measured in KILOGRAMS.

So, I thought I ordered 20 Ibs of flour, and 20 Ibs of sugar. But I actually ordered 20 KG of flour, 20 KG of sugar.  20 KG is 44.09 Ibs.  More than double.  I had ordered more than double what I thought I ordered.  And OMG, 44 Ibs of sugar is heavy.  I'd also ordered a big huge bag of cornmeal, which was double the size I thought I'd ordered, but which thankfully wasn't nearly as big as the flour or sugar.

My tin of hot chocolate was the biggest tin I've ever seen in my entire life.
My jam, which was on sale for half price, came in a box and ended up being filled with loads of those little tiny jam containers that you get when you order toast in a restaurant.

The popcorn I ordered wasn't in, which may have been a blessing because I thought I was getting the dollar store size bags so I ordered 8 and who knows how big they would have been? My Mom and I eat popcorn every night.

So I have accidentally become a hoarder.

It's OK though, as my best friend's Mom lives next door. She's 80 and lives alone I can now supply her with all of the flour, sugar, and potatoes she can ever want.  Same with my 89 year old uncle.  So that's 3 households taken care of for the foreseeable future.

I plan to learn how to make sourdough bread.  My Dad wants to plant some of the potatoes.
My Mom screamed herself hoarse because I bought so much stuff, but she finally calmed down and went to sleep.

My friend works at the bakery section of the grocery store and is going to see if he can bring me some of the food grade buckets to store my flour in rather than throw them out. Which will help a lot.

I'm looking forward to lots of freshly baked goods in the near future, lol.