Out of the Bunker, Onto the Front Lines of the TP Wars

The pandemic madness is settling in now so I can’t be sure how many days it’s been since we’ve been hunkered in the coronavirus bunker. Maybe eight? Seems like it could be a year. We’ve still got communications with the outside world and what we’ve heard is unsettling. Shortages of meat, canned goods and what are now, in these end times, the most important staples on Earth…disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer, liquid hand soap and toilet paper. Some of the anecdotal accounts we’ve heard on the crank up radio, seen on the TV and read on the internet speak of panic at the stores, shootouts in the aisles and army tanks patrolling the parking lots to enforce butt wipe martial law rules of one package per person. But the time had come to exit the bunker and chance the fray. We were down to three rolls of Costco triple size and things were looking bleak.
The president was on the other day and we heard him say we’re “at war” with the virus so, like you do in wartime, we’ve been willing to sacrifice for the cause. I mean, I even ate the last of our Girl Scout cookies yesterday. We’re willing to go awhile without more but we’re not confident that we can hold out for, like, four or five days or anything.
So, under cover of darkness at oh-five-hundred today, I crept out in the urban assault Nissan and began to forage. My assigned coordinates were for Festival Foods. I pulled the UAN into a socially distanced parking spot. Having sustained a prior scratch and dent field injury to the Nissan, the thought occurred to me that parking at least six feet away from other cars makes sense even when we’re not at war. Then I scampered briskly up to the store doors, employing a zig zag patterned gait so as to not attract the undue attention of anyone thinking I might have a bee-line on the last 24-pack of the precious pulp product which they, too, were after.
I nearly had to abandon the mission upon entry when, to my horror, there were no disinfectant wipes with which to wipe down the cart handles. A sign on the dispenser said the store was sorry. Well, there’s no place for sorry when you’re at war. But what to do? My commanding officer back in the bunker gave specific orders to wipe before touching but combat sometimes throws curves at a soldier and this grunt had to improvise. Lacking any tree limbs and animal pelts with which to fashion a grocery travois, I took the risk of just grabbing a cart and I headed forth. To my surprise I encountered little enemy traffic. First stop was the paper products aisle where the shelves were not well stocked but there were sufficient rations for my unit. I expected carnage but the battlefield was abandoned and I was alone for the moment. I procured the primary target and, because I hadn’t encountered any incoming fire yet, I tracked to the hand soap and Chlorox wipes areas and commandeered both items from dwindling reserves. At that point I should have let discretion be the better part of valor but the absence of enemy troops had bolstered my visions of wartime heroism and I decided to reconnoiter the produce aisle. That’s where my foray hit a snag. They were completely out of organic spring mix lettuce.
Damn it. War is hell.