So, is "the great toilet paper freakout of 2020" finally over?

We were down to our last rolls (i admit to feeling a touch nervous), but my wife just walked over to our Walgreens and came back with a 12-pack.

She said they had plenty of toilet paper. And because she's not insane, she just bought one pack, leaving the rest for others to purchase, instead of buying all 5,000 rolls and filling our basement storage room with them like some kind of lunatic.

The crackdown on the resale markets and the fact that the most aggressive hoarders now have enough non-perishables to last them 6 months means hopefully the shelves will stay full a little longer.

The grocery demand curve is flattening...

I would think most people have enough food and toilet paper to last them the rest of the year.

How to Help Chicago Bar and Restaurant Workers During the COVID-19 Outbreak

https://chicago.eater.com/2020/3/17/...-links-chicago

In this link there are tons of fund me links by the whole city to individual local bars and restaurants.

I have used Parallels to emulate a PC with Windows on my Mac for years. I need Quicken and for years they discontinued the Mac version. Now it's back but still not as good as the PC version. Anyway, Parallels/Windows emulation works pretty well if you can install the business software you need on your own computer.

Of course, you can also install Windows in a "boot camp" partition directly on you Mac but then you have to reboot to go back and forth between a Mac desktop and the Windows desktop whereas with Parallels emulation you don't. If you have 2 monitors, you could even set up one as your "Mac" and one as your "PC" and run them simultaneously.

Why? In San Francisco plenty of marijuana dealers deliver.

Maybe until there is a spike of deaths or something in your neighborhood or if there is another round of infections later in the year.

All of those will induce local panic buying

But I think the global panic buying of mid-March 2020 is behind us for now.

I have a question or two for Californians especially.

I am still in Arizona but had been planning to return to SF at the end of April and still really want to do that trip. I use a rental car from Hertz which I pick up at the airport in Tucson. Arizona is not really shut down so hopefully even if the airport Hertz shuts for lack of business (no flights), they'll keep at least one Tucson location open where I can pick up my car.

But I am worried about whether I'll be able to turn it in in SF and also about gas. Are gas stations "essential businesses" and staying open in CA?

My husband is in healthcare and attended a briefing at one of the facilities where he works in which they stated, at least in this state where the hard stuff is sold through state-run liquor stores, that keeping those stores fully stocked is a high priority of the state. Why? Because alcohol withdrawal would kill people by the hundreds if they weren't.

But a room-sized toilet paper igloo is so cozy!

People haven't been this obsessed with toilet paper since Mr. Whipple made the scene back in the 80's. Remember those commercials? The ones where everyone lived in some kind of alternate universe of perverts obsessed with squeezing Charmin toilet paper? This whole thing has been like that to the nth degree.

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...5TMnp6eEM3NSJ9

So if the guys camped in the alley I can see from my condo score rooms at the Four Seasons, Ritz Carleton or St. Regis, I'm going to be a little jealous.

Hang around outside in your rattiest clothes to score a room at the Four Seasons...

Yes gas stations will stay open. A lot of businesses are still open, and wouldn't you know it, "Cannabis dispensaries, or any related and/or ancillary healthcare services" are on the list of essential businesses staying open in LA: https://corona-virus.la/faq so there was no need for panic buying after all.

Yes, definitely gas stations. And gas prices are so low now. I saw $3.22/gallon for 89 octane at the 76 station I often go to. That's low for California! And I've been driving less and my car is so fuel efficient, I have yet to take advantage of the new low prices. :P

Laundromats are still open too; that is definitely an essential business, for people who use/need them.

I'm wondering about the Total Wine & Spirits. Maybe I'll stop there on my way home to see if it's open; I wanna buy some mead.

Maybe they need to deliver Valium instead then. That would solve two problems at once. For those who need it, treat alcohol withdrawal syndrome and for others help with anxiety.

I said the owner/CEO of the company I work for is a stingy asshole. He wouldn't pay for the extra laptops/hardware/software that many of us would need to work from home, let alone letting me take personnel and medical files home with very sensitive information. I don't even think that's legal (but I could be wrong).

Once upon a time, I took my cat to work (because my nurse wanted to see her) where she promptly got fleas from the grass outside the office. So I had to fumigate the apartment which meant the cat and I had to leave for several hours so we hung around outside, me holding her in her carrier. And people kept offering me "spare change". So I think I can pull off the role.

I didn't even know those existed until fairly recently; someone I know who lives in Utah mentioned that his state has those. I was like "Whaaaaaat? You mean you can't go to the supermarket and buy a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of hooch?"

Gees that's expensive.

Gas is $ 1.55 by me.

https://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPrices/Wisconsin/Kenosha